Who’s behind Raze and Rebuild Studio? What is it we do, and what are we making?

Our Mission

Raze and Rebuild Studio is a collaborative effort to rebuild from the ashes of the industry. We’re a small but mighty group of developers, creatives and mentors in the industry, taking our initial steps into creating our first game as a group. Our mission is to show that indie development can happen with cooperation; and not as pawns of corporate masters.

Founders

Tanya DePass  is the founder & Director of I Need Diverse Games, Rivals of Waterdeep Producer & Cast Member, a partnered Twitch variety broadcaster, and RPG developer/writer/consultant. They’re the Creator & Creative Director for Into the Mother Lands RPG. Additionally, Tanya is a Senior Annenberg Civics Media Fellow at USC. Their work to make the industry more inclusive has been highlighted in Game Changer, Directed by Tina Charles, WNBA star & Olympian as well as filmmaker. The short documentary premiered at Tribeca 2021, as part of the Queen Collective. They currently serve as the Board Chair for Take This, and have been a full BAFTA US member since 2024. 

Tarja Porkka-Kontturi is an award-winning business development professional, cultural producer, community builder, and accessibility consultant. She’s spent years working across the global games industry with studios, publishers, and organizations, with experience also spanning PR and marketing. From helping startups and indie studios find business opportunities to training AAA teams and advocating for more accessible games, Tarja loves connecting people, ideas, and opportunities — and working to make the games industry a little more welcoming and sustainable along the way.

Laura Kate Dale is an award winning video game critic, accessibility / representation consultant, sensitivity reader, and more. Over 15 years in the video game industry she’s done work ranging from Twitch streaming, to News Editor, to Narrative Designer, to Mock Reviewer. She has a background in working on game jam prototype projects, and looks to bring her writing, narrative design, and accessibility experience to the studio’s projects.

Ian Schreiber has been making games professionally since the year 2000, following a winding path from programmer to systems designer to academic to lead designer and creative director. He has co-authored three books on game design, and is a co-founder of Global Game Jam and its spinoff, GGJ Next.

Advisors

Tramell Ray Isaac is the founder and CEO of BEEKDiPP LLC, a character asset, environment, and props outsourcing group that utilizes automation to create next-gen content for game development. He arrived there after thirty-plus years in games. He was an artist on the original Fallout, where he designed the iconic Fallout mascot, Vault Boy, and was lead artist on Fallout 2, which named a character after him. He went on to art-direct PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2 at Sony Online Entertainment, Duke Nukem Forever at 3D Realms, and LawBreakers at Boss Key Productions, and served as VP of Art at IllFonic on Predator: Hunting Grounds and Chief Art Officer and Founder at Distinct Possibility Studios.

Carl Varnado – At my core, I’m a Creative Director, Educator, and Visionary who thrives on pushing narratives forward—whether in games, media, or education. If you’re looking to collaborate on game narrative, worldbuilding, creative strategy, or transmedia storytelling, let’s connect

Nate is a 20-year veteran of the games industry. He comes from pro-gaming beginnings with success on the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour, he went on to work at Wizards of the Coast on trading card games (Magic), board games, and minis. He is a veteran of PopCap and Z2, where he designed mobile casual games such as Plants vs Zombies Heroes and Paradise Bay. He was a Design Director for WB games and also was the Head of Game Design and Product for Machine Zone and their hardcore 4x game suite. Nate has a passion for great games, behavioral psychology, and travel. He does not compete at TCGs anymore but has since become a champion board gamer to keep his skills sharp.

Ned Donovan (He/Him) is an actor, producer, and tech founder based in New York City. He is an executive producer and cast member on Encounter Party, an official Dungeons & Dragons TV series available now on Amazon Prime, Roku, Tubi, and more. Ned is a member of SAG-AFTRA, Actors’ Equity, and The Television Academy (in both the producer and performer peer groups).

As a founder, Ned launched Audition Cat, a career-management platform for professional actors, and Charging Moose Media, his audio-visual production company. He has worked in and around startups with a background spanning consumer technology, fintech, and media, and has consulted on operations, project management, and internal tooling for companies and C-suite executives across those industries.

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members

Ellie Tsang (they/she) is a writer, educator, streamer, and award-winning narrative designer. They bring 16 years of experience between indie, tabletop, and AAA studios, with a particular focus on supporting studio founding and coordinating crowd-funding efforts.

Ellie’s work has been recognized by SXSW, Gamescom, International Serious Play Awards, and the Unity Creator Challenge. Outside of games, their writing has been published in Elegant Literature magazine and The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope anthology. They were a writer and designer for Monolith Productions, where they contributed to the development of the Nemesis System until the studio closure in 2025. Most recently, they worked alongside Warren Spector on an unannounced project at OtherSide Entertainment. Ellie has a weakness for RPGs, immersive sims, and stories that hold together even when players take things gloriously sideways.

Over the past 25 years, Brazilian illustrator Claudio Pozas has worked on hundreds of TTRPG’s, CCG’s, and boardgame products. His portfolio includes work for Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Marvel and the Witcher among other properties. He joins Raze & Rebuild from Rio de Janeiro, bringing additional international perspectives to the visual look and feel of our upcoming projects.