Zatobo company

Hello and welcome to the Zatobo page! We are a small entrepreneurial company of indie game developers working on our first title. Our team has a mutual love of the media of games, and having taken much from the great products out already, decided to turn our respective talents to creating some of our own. Our offerings are very much games for gamers, by gamers.

We came by the name "Zatobo" while looking for a description which truly fit what we wanted to do with our products, in essence our collective vision. We checked through a whole host of perspective names, and discovered that we felt a common theme about telling a story or a tale, together with the process of create our own worlds. Eventually we settled on Zatobo which is Japanese for "Storyteller".

As a company, Zatobo is focused on the creation of high quality, well polished games. We have a long history of playing them, and we know just what irks the modern gamer. This is not to say that we are just gamers who decided one day to turn our passion for gaming into actually sitting down and making them! We each have experience relevant to making this project work, Mordred and Abhuva have both worked in highly rated mods (Prophesy of Pendor 3, Prophesy of Pendor 4, Scaedumar) while Izual has a successful career in business. Together we have the technical and financial know-how to realise our vision.

We are however a small firm, with currently very limited resources. Our plan is to experiment with different mechanics and ideas and present these as a series of casual games which are priced accordingly. This means that while we have a big picture in our minds for the "perfect" game, we know that we simply do not have the means to make this vision anything more than a dream right now. We will therefore release a series of self-contained mini games which focus on a particular feature or mechanic, with the quality our customers expect.

The funding and experience derived from these will be re-invested in our future titles, and we know that this additional investment will enable us to realise our dreams, and we already have a major development project in mind. This will be the culmination of our efforts, containing the best of our mechanics and features, and benefiting from the experience and resources gained from the more casually themed projects. We firmly believe that this elixir of past knowledge, financial success and passion will enable Zatobo to grow and compete with the primary producers in this industry.

So let's meet the team:

Mordred : Lead Designer : Mordred is an aspiring young author and game designer, who is very keen on exploring the possibilities of mixed media enterprises. Worlds are very one dimensional when only viewed from one medium, but by mixing them one gets a far fuller experience of the setting and depth of the story.

Mordred has worked as the Senior Designer on Prophesy of Pendor 3 for Mount and Blade, eventually moving to the position of Lead Designer for Prophesy of Pendor 4. It was here that Mordred developed a deeper understanding of the philosophy of game design, together with demonstrating an ability to manage a (sometimes complex) group of highly creative individuals.

Abhuva : Lead Artist : Abhuva's work on his own Mount & Blade mod, "Scaedumar" led to his recruitment to the Prophesy of Pendor 4 team. Initially joining as an artist Abhuva quickly developed the role to include level design and programming activities. He has since assumed the Lead Artist role, where he has really supported the team with his extraordinary talent and vision.

Abhuva has worked as a physical artist for 15 years (theatre, performance and music) while harbouring a deep interest for games. He found that mixing his background and his gaming passion allowed him to express himself very creatively, first as a level designer then progressing onto programming and modding in games such as Neverwinter Nights, Mount and Blade and finally on to Unity which is the primary engine currently used by Zatobo. The very core of his work hinges on the belief that there is a meaning, a history and a story behind every object/scene. Filling our virtual worlds with such a meaning leads to a far more interesting, immersive and believable experience.

Izual : Business Development Manager. Izual has worked in several business functions for the last 4 years. His experience and background is in sales, marketing and project management. While not an experienced game designer he is supporting this project and creating the business structure from which Zatobo can grow into a premier game design studio.

A keen interest in modern technology and computing provides the awareness and understanding of upcoming trends and demands to ensure that Zatobo is properly placed to provide the best gaming experience to its customers.

Our Commitment:

We respect our consumers and as such will only release something we know to be to the best of our ability. Gamers are tired of playing rushed and incomplete products, full of avoidable glitches and we pledge not to make them that way. If we ourselves do not enjoy playing it, or get frustrated by bugs then we will not release. It's as simple as that.