Gaz Liddon - Studio Head

Gaz has been working in video games for over a quarter of a century. Starting as a journalist on the seminal Commodore 64 magazine Zzap!64 he soon moved into games development as founder and Tech Director of 8 Bit software publisher Thalamus.

Gaz has worked in a variety of roles on major titles including Mortal Kombat, Theme Park World, Moto GP and ATV Offroad Fury. After 8 years as Climax’s COO Gaz left in 2004 to found Xen and made key contributions to many titles including Fable 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, Too Human and Crackdown.

Gareth Noyce - Development Director

Originally hailing from commercial software development, Gareth worked as an engineer, project manager and consultant on numerous bespoke software and online applications before joining the games industry in 2003.

Billy Thomson - Creative Director

Billy has over 13 years experience of designing video games. Initially responsible for the design and creation of pseudo 3D cities and mission objectives, he then moved on to designing, building, texturing and lighting fully 3D levels. Since then he has been involved in a wide range of areas of design as well as gaining invaluable production and team management experience.

Billy is currently the Creative Director at Ruffian Games and is relishing the prospect of their current project!

Neil Duffield - Senior Programmer

Neil has been in the games industry for almost 17 years, working as a Technical Director, Lead Programmer, Engine Architect & low level programmer. His first full project was F-117A on the Amiga, and he has worked on several popular titles over the years, including G-Police, Grand Prix 4, Too Human, Fable 2 & Crackdown.

James Cope - Producer

With a background in commercial software engineering, Jim is proud to have worked as engineer and project manager to produce bespoke software systems for companies such as Sony, Orange and Vodafone. His attention turned full time to videogames in 2005, when he achieved his long term desire to make great new gaming experiences with Crackdown.

Chris Gottgetreu - Art Manager

Began his career working in the Television Industry, working on the Animated TV show ‘The Elf King’ in Vancouver, Canada, before making the leap over to the Game Industry. In the last 9 years, Chris has worked in all disciplines of art from creation to pipeline on many titles including Sudeki, Atv Offroad Fury, Crackdown and Too Human.

Steve Legg - Senior Engineer

Coming Soon

Leigh Bird - Senior Engineer

Leigh started in games in 1997, starting at Climax, and in 2007 moving onto working with Xen. He has worked on projects ranging from Stinky (a hardware “smell” device) and Diablo PSX, To Sudeki and more recently to high profile hits such as fable 2, all throughout covering a wide variety of platforms and roles.

Kirsty Scott - Human Resources And Office Manager

Kirsty Scott is the Human Resources and Office Manager for Ruffian, leading on the development and delivery of a first class HR service ensuring that effective strategies, policies and procedures are supporting the company to achieve its vision, aims and objectives. Kirsty is the first point of contact for the company and responsible for the smooth running of the office.

Barry Cairns - Senior Engineer

Barry worked as a senior gameplay programmer on Crackdown before leaving to join Xen to work with Lionhead on Fable 2. He now works as a senior programmer at Ruffian Games.

David Hynd - Senior Engineer

Dave is a graduate of the University of Abertay’s Computer Games Technology course. Relatively new to the industry, Dave joined Xen group in early 2005 to work on the award winning Crackdown for the Xbox 360. After this, he accepted the offer of a permanent role at Realtime Worlds to work on the upcoming MMO, APB.

In late 2008, he rejoined Xen group shortly before they reformed under the banner of Ruffian games.

Stuart Campbell - Art Lead

Stuart made the move into the games industry 7 years ago having previously spent 4 years at IBM UK as a Product Designer then Graphic Designer. He was a Senior Environment artist on the award winning Xbox 360 title Crackdown overseeing all aspects of environment creation.

Stuart was also Lead Technical Environment Artist for the forthcoming MMO APB and worked closely with in-house tech teams to refine the environment pipeline.

Stuart is now Art Lead on Crackdown 2

Neil Pollock - Lead Animator

Neil has been working in the games industry now for just over 10 years. Starting at Vis Entertainment in 1998 he worked on a number of titles including Tom and Jerry, State of Emergency and Evil Dead before moving to Realtime Worlds in 2004 as Senior Animator to work on the award winning Crackdown and upcoming MMO title APB.

Neil is now Lead Animator at Ruffian Games.

Paul Simms - Art Director

Paul has been creating Artwork in various guises for over a 30 year career. Starting his career locally in comics he then became freelance for a number of years before entering the Games industry roughly 13 years ago.

Paul has worked on many well known titles including Earthworm Jim 3D, State of Emergency and Crackdown

Paul A. Simms - Artist

Paul started work in the games industry at VIS for a brief spell as an artist working on “Brave” then joined D.C.Thomson to work on publications such as the Beano and Dandy.

He completed working for DC Thomson in 2005 to join Realtime Worlds to work on Crackdown.

Steve Randell - IT Manager

Steve has been working within the IT industry for over twelve years. In this time he has been involved in many of the various aspects of IT, from providing user support to installing, configuring and maintaining business critical IT infrastructure. Steve joined Ruffian Games as IT Manager in March 2009.

Will Sykes - Senior Engineer

Will started working in games 1999. Titles he’s worked on include: SpeedKings, Black Hawk Down, Crackdown, PGR4 and Too Human.

Mike Enoch - Code Lead

Mike has been programming in the games industry since 1997, most recently leading the gameplay and AI teams on Crackdown with Realtime Worlds

Steve Iannetta - Lead Designer

Stephen spent two years as a Multi Media and Interior Designer before joining VIS entertainment back in 1996. From then he has worked for Red Lemon Studios, Realtime Worlds and Midway Newcastle. Starting as an Environment artist, he has turned his attention to the some of the more creative roles ranging from Environment Artist, Level Designer, Content Designer and World Designer on a variety of games; Earthworm Jim 3D, Roswell, Dexter’s Lab, NARC, Crackdown to Wheelman.

Ed Campbell - Senior Designer

Ed has nearly twenty years experience of working in the games industry. Starting as an artist and animator on 8-bit machines he went on to design such titles as Harlequin and Zool 2 for 16-bit formats. Since then he has worked in various roles on games including Formula Karts, Aironauts, Dexter’s Lab, NARC, State of Emergency 2 and Crackdown.

John Hynd - Senior Engineer

John has been working in the games industry since 2004. After graduating from Abertay’s Computer Games Technology course in Dundee John joined Kuju’s Brighton studio (now branded Zoë Mode). While in Brighton, he worked on titles in the EyeToy franchise and PlayStation Home for Sony. He then developed an in house solution for online gaming and networking used in the studio’s recent titles followed by a move to R+D where he worked on Kuju’s next-next-gen engine Fabric.

In 2009, John joined the very talented team at Ruffian Games and reunited himself with Scotland and square sausage.

Ross Nicoll - Lead Audio Designer

Ross has been working in games for 6 years. He started at VIS Entertainment, before moving to Realtime Worlds in 2005, where he was a member of the BAFTA award winning audio team on Crackdown, and the forthcoming title APB. He left Realtime in 2009 to join Ruffian Games as Audio Design Lead.

Peter Mackay - Engineer

Peter has been in the software industry since 2000, starting with LightWave and Maya plug-ins, then working at VIS on Brave, I-Race and State of Emergency 2. More recently he was at Black Company Studios, concentrating on PC, PSP, Nintendo DS and Wii projects.

Paul Large - Character Artist

Paul started making Half-Life mods in 2000 then went onto be a freelance web designer until his final year at uni in 2006 when he decided to try his hand at 3D. After graduating in 2007 Paul worked on Don King Presents Prizefighter on the 360 and Don Kings Boxing on the Wii as a character artist before a short stint at Cohort Studios working on an unannounced project.

Rob Cowsill - Senior Engineer

Rob has been a games programmer for just over five years. He initially worked at EA/Criterion Games on titles including Burnout 3, Black and Burnout Paradise. After a brief spell working on TimeSplitters 4 at Free Radical Design, Rob joined Ruffian Games as a senior engineer on the AI/Gameplay team.

Karim El Shakankiri - Senior Engineer

Since 2001 Karim has worked in various fields, from real-time 3D engine tech to working on MRI technology for the medical industry. He most recently worked on the environment tools for the upcoming MMO title APB. He wears a silly hat.

Carlos Garcia - Artist

Carlos made the move to the industry over three years ago. After studying Computer Animation in the United States he went to work for Electronic Arts as an Environment Artist. He worked there on the next gen outings of the franchises NCAA 07, NCAA 08 and Tiger Woods 09. After almost a year working in San Diego for an independent developer he joined Ruffian Games in April.

Carlos is now Environment Artist at Ruffian Games.

Dean Smith - Senior Mission Designer

Dean has been in video games since 1999, when he fled his early career as a tattie picker to join EA as a tester. His break in design came when Visual Science employed him as a Level designer to work on the Medal of Honour series. He has since worked for a string of studios in various design roles on titles ranging from shooters and racers to open-world action games. His most recent title is Wheelman.

Dean is now Senior Mission Designer at Ruffian Games, and is pure dead happy to be among the outstanding talent here.

Martin Livingston - Mission Designer

This is Martin’s 5th year in the games industry, but his first in console games having previously worked at I-play and Tag Games on a variety of mobile and iPhone projects. Some of the titles he is credited as designer on include Metal Slug Mobile 3, Deal or No Deal, 2008 Weakest Link and Tumblebugs.

Richard Wazejewski - Artist

Richard has worked as a professional bass player since the early eighties, making a brief appearance on TV and playing numerous parties, weddings, funerals, barmitzvas and just about any other type of function you could possibly imagine. Richard made a career move into multimedia design around 2000 working on projects for Thames Gateway Havering Riverside Development, Chiswick Park Business Centre and Edexcel amongst others. He started working in the games industry as a freelance artist in 2007 working on casual games for Fuzzy Bug Interactive and for Sean Lindskog of Firedance Games, formerly lead content engineer and programmer for Turbine and EA Canada.

Richard now works on environment and UI art at Ruffian Games.

Richard Welsh - Junior Engineer

Rich is a graduate from the University of Durham, currently working as a Junior AI and Gameplay Dev. His previous work saw him working on PC tycoon titles such as the Prison Tycoon series and Eco Tycoon.

Ryan Astley - Junior Artist

Ryan is an MA graduate of the University of Teesside, currently working as an Environment Artist for Ruffian Games. He has over two years experience at Virtual Playground where he collaborated on PC titles such as the Prison Tycoon series, Mission Runway and Eco Tycoon: Project Green.

Iain Donald - Test Manager

Starting at Digital Bridges/I-play Iain worked on a number of titles for Taito, Namco, SNK, EA, Fox & Universal before moving to Realtime Worlds in 2006 where he was QA Manager on Crackdown. He worked briefly on an unannounced project with Realtime, before leaving at the end of 2008 to project manage a collaborative project between the University of Abertay and the BBC creating new games and IPs. Iain joined Ruffian Games in July 2009.

Kevin Dunlop - Junior Artist

Kevin is a recent graduate of Abertay’s Computer Arts course. He recently took part in Dare to be digital 2008, Abertay’s well known developer contest for students. His team Blue Skies went on to win the contest and as a result was nominated with 2 other teams for the Bafta “Ones to watch” award.

Kevin Black - Tester

Kevin is a Graduate from Dundee University, studying Computer Science. He was previously part of the QA team at Proper Games working on their recent, Capcom produced title – “Flock!” for Xbox Live and PSN.

Ewan McKenzie - Tester

Ewan is a recent graduate of the University of Abertay’s Game Production Management course. In April 2009, he joined Ruffian Games as a QA Tester and is looking forward to working with an extremely talented team during his first development cycle in the industry.

Ewan graduated with First Class Honours in the University of Abertay’s Game Production Management course in 2009.

Andrew Heywood - Engineer

Andy has been gainfully employed in the games industry since 2005. After landing a junior programming role at Outerlight in Edinburgh following success in the Dare to be Digital computer games competition, he went on with them to release cult (very cult) hit ‘The Ship’ over Valve’s Steam network in 2006. From then up until he decided to leave Edinburgh for Dundee in May 2009, he was working on an as-yet mostly-unannounced pseudo-sequel to that game, for PC and XBox 360.

He’s now working as a Gameplay/AI Engineer at Ruffian.

Sean Noonan - Designer

Sean started out contributing to mods for Duke Nukem 3D, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament whilst working in the field of electronics. After leaving electronics and having brief stint in insurance he found his first professional position in the games industry with Midway as a Mission Designer on Wheelman. He is never referred to by his first name. Ever.

Noonan is now a Designer at Ruffian Games.

Terry Drever - Junior Engineer

Terry Is a graduate of the University of Central Lancashire’s Games development course, working as a junior AI / Gameplay Engineer. He has one years experience at Gusto Games, working on multiple un-announced titles, including one cross platform MMO.

Sean Branney - Senior Tester

Sean has been working in the games industry now for just under 4 years.

Starting at Realtime Worlds in 2006 he worked on the award winning Crackdown and Crackdown’s DLC, worked with the Realtime Worlds Technology team before joining to Proper Games in 2008 as Lead QA to work on award winning XBLA Spring of Xbox Live title and Scottish Bafta winner FLOCK!.

Duncan Harrison - AI and Gameplay Engineer

Duncan has been working in the games industry for just over 2 years. He has spent 1 ½ years at Realtime Worlds working on an unannounced title where he focussed on graphics programming and large scale data manipulation.

Craig Thomson - Senior Engineer

Craig graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in AI and Computer Science. Since then he has worked on Medical Imaging software, as well as writing games in Australia and working for the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre at the University of Edinburgh.

Neil McNaughton - Junior Animator

Neil graduated from the Computer Arts course at Abertay University in 2008 and then proceeded to compete in the University’s “Dare to be Digital” game prototype competition. Immediately after this he took on an internship at Rare Ltd. focusing on character art where he worked on a number of unannounced projects. After leaving Rare and moving back to Dundee he was taken on at Ruffian as Junior Animator.

Graham Wright - Designer

Graham began his career in the game industry in February 2008 at Midway Newcastle as a QA analyst on Wheelman. At the end of Wheelman development he was hired as a Junior Content Designer on Necessary Force before gaining his position as Junior Multiplayer Designer at Ruffian.

David Hoare - Tester

David is a graduate of Abertay’s Computer Arts course. He has also studied both classical & computer animation in Balleyfermot college, Dublin. After venturing to Dundee to further his studies he participated in Dare to be Digital 2008, done some testing work on “Flock!” for Xbox Live and PSN and also worked on some iPhone titles before Ruffian drafted him onboard as a games tester….and to make the tea!

Stewart Neal - Outsource Manager

Stewart graduated in 1998 with a BA in Industrial design.
His career in videogames began shortly after as an artist on the Test Drive series and Demolition Racer, later becoming Lead Artist and Art Director on LA Rush.

On the acquisition of The Pitbull Syndicate by Midway Games, Stewart worked as Lead Artist on environments for Wheelman, and managed the outsourcing efforts for environment and cinematic prop work.

In 2008, Stewart graduated with an MSc in Management, and is now Outsource Manager at Ruffian Games.