UNFATED STUDIOS LAUNCH
UNFATED STUDIOS FOUNDERS: HUGO HOGENDOORN, ROOFI MULYA, TOBY LEISEROWITZ
WE ARE UNFATED STUDIOS.
UNFATED STUDIOS, LLC. is an independent game-development studio founded in the state of Virginia in the United States by three co-founders with expertise in their areas of specialization. The remote studio focuses on creating culturally-inspired games, with its first title being “BATARA: Fate Unbound", an Indonesian-inspired action-RPG sidescroller taking place in the ambitious dark fantasy world of Yrdra —conceptualized for over 4 years by the leader of the studio, Roofi Mulya. Roofi is the Lead Artist of the studio and specializes in Indonesian-inspired worldbuilding such as characters and environments with intricate details and references to the diverse visual language of Indonesian cultures. This unique flavor is enhanced further by tight, realistic rendering as well as the dark elegance that is often seen in works of Yoshitaka Amano. Accompanying Roofi is 2D Artist Lidia Turowska based in Poland who not only helps turn the world into visual concepts with the same type of elegance, but also crafts the visual in-game look of BATARA with her stunning handpainted environment assets that contribute towards portraying specific atmospheres and emotions surrounding the central theme of ‘beauty in decay.’ Her work ethic is fast, fearless, and flexible —an artistic powerhouse.
Bringing the vision to life in its tangible, playable form is co-founder Toby Leiserowitz, an experienced Unity programmer that prioritizes the ideal gaming experience that is fluid, challenging, and ultimately fun —taking from the greatest references such as Dark Souls, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Nine Sols, and polishing them even further. A core principle of our game design is “tough but fair,” while also staying simple and intentional with every decision, and minimizing any factors that may make gameplay “annoying” unless it was intended to be. This includes ideas such as eliminating stat-management or minimizing backtracking and confusing maps that are often found in Metroidvanias. While we acknowledge that those are also the selling points of RPGs and Metroidvanias, we want to keep the experience contained and focused on the story and the world. Instead of managing multiple numbers that quantify the player’s progress or testing the player’s patience that does not necessarily benefit the experience, we prioritize giving the players a sort of “toolkit” and a puzzle-like level design that can be used to the player’s advantage; thereby encouraging players to solve problems creatively. A big part of our philosophy is to make sure that any experience the player has with the game has to do with their skill and critical thinking, and no issues caused by poor game design. We noticed in extremely challenging games such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and DOOM: ETERNAL, players have the ability to control emotions and proceed in the midst of adversity as they take accountability for every mistake or skill issue they had with the immediate level, and improve during their next run. In essence, most players rage and lose patience when it is the game’s fault (such as a bug or not having enough context clues to know where to go), instead of when it is their own fault.
Working hand-in-hand with Toby moving forward is animator Jessi Israel, a skilled animator contributing towards creating the ideal gameplay by animating fluid sprite animations for characters, enemies, and potentially even VFX.
Enriching the storytelling is co-founder Hugo Hogendoorn, an experienced writer and game designer who focuses on planning creative level designs and establishing a profound narrative design on top of an existing world —elevating the story by multiple levels. Hugo takes reference not only from direct inspirations such as Elden Ring in its obscure narrative and intricate level design, but also from story and character-rich games such as Disco Elysium and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. One of the studio's main principle is to never spoonfeed the player, but rather hint towards the mystery of the world, while also showing a clear story progression. The obscurity of FromSoftware is incredibly alluring, but at times its active story is confusing and hidden unless explained by a lore youtuber. While we do love that and want to keep that (as watching those youtubers is how we also grew up to the genre), it is imperative to find the proper balance to make the story accessible to more players. We also strongly believe in creating highly emotional experiences not only in the retrospective, but also in the immediate, which is best achieved by having a focused storyline. Every character dialogue is treated with intentional prose and relevance to the plot or the world —hinting something at the bigger picture while still focusing on a specific direction. As garnish, there are plenty of context clues or information between item descriptions and dialogues among many other texts that connect towards specific ideas. The narrative also expands the amount of people who can become fruitful detectives rather than just the top percentage of lore enthusiasts.
Elevating the experience are the two music composers, Evan Cheng and Noah Stein, creating immersive ambience and music that are also memorable and can be enjoyed by itself. Evan is an incredible illustrator, concept artist, and UI/UX Designer in his separate professional career, and yet he is capable of creating music just as ethereal and mesmerizing as his paintings. Noah is also a phenomenal musician from Yale University. He is the Assistant Music Director of the Yale Whiffenpoofs and Conductor of the Yale Glee Club, and his expertise speaks for itself. Both musicians conduct intensive research on the sounds of traditional Indonesian music and transforming that into a unique form of video game soundtrack.
UP/START & Official Launch
UNFATED STUDIOS were one of the winners of the 2025 UP/START Venture Competition, hosted by the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Ratcliffe Center for Creative Entrepreneurship, in which we won a $30,000 award and a $5,000 People’s Choice Award. These awards become our very first seedfund in our funding portfolio to help officially launch the studio and continue development of BATARA: Fate Unbound. Thank you to Ashley Guchait and Kyrstin Cooksey from Boba Studios for assisting us with our win. On June 27th, 2025, Unfated Studios has officially been registered as an LLC.
ARTWALK
Parallel to our UP/START victory, we had the pleasure of presenting a stunning exhibition for the 2025 MICA Artwalk event that we are incredibly proud of. We created a cozy game lounge with the timeline of our studio on the left wall showcasing how we started, our achievements so far, and our future plan. On the right wall is a salon-style exhibit of the art as well as a little reel showcasing the animations and VFX of our game. In the center is of course the TV with an early playable demo and in the middle of the space is a 3-people couch and a table showcasing our new artbook. We also had Indonesian-inspired ceramics Roofi made scattered around the exhibition.