Unhinged Studios came to be in the midst of 2020 when two art-school-dropout-turned-software-developers met and discovered they shared the same life dream of creating immersive video games. In the years since Don Westendorp and Del Sharratt have assembled a team of like-minded devs interested in helping bring that vision to life.
With their collective decades of software experience, they've decided for their first title to write about what they know: the asinine yet dominating culture of the tech industry and how one survives it. In dev_hell, players step into the shoes of a newly hired developer who must meet business expectations or face the consequences.
Don dreamed of making video games his entire life. In 2004 he attended Savannah College of Art and Design to study interactive design and game development, but life had other plans in store. After dropping out, he entered into a long and strenuous career in web app development.
Still, an innate and undeniable desire for creativity continued to fuel this dream in the background. Then finally, fifteen years later, all the pieces came together for him to give indie games a real shot.
With an extensive background in visual arts and professional programming, Don wears most hats needed for game development. This compliments cofounder Del's broad skillset, and has allowed them to collaboratively - and sometimes combatively (yet cooperatively!) - push every piece of their work together to be the best it can possibly be.
In his spare time, Don enjoys woodworking, gardening, and spending time with family. Often he can be found in his basement playing Minecraft and Stardew Valley with his 8 year old daughter, the joy of his life.
As long as they can remember, Del Sharratt aspired to be a storyteller. A constant daydreamer while also someone of fewer words, they found belonging in creative expression. Whether it was through photography or poetry or music, art gave them the ability to share the way they viewed the world with others. In 2014, they enrolled in Minneapolis College of Art and Design to study web & multimedia with hopes to someday develop a video game.
In a sudden turn of events, however, they found themself headed in a direction they hadn't expected. After a several-year emotional rollercoaster of a journey defined by challenges and growth alike, Del was inspired to make a major life change. In 2019 they applied to a coding bootcamp, Prime Digital Academy, in order to jumpstart a new career.
Fast-forward 5 years and a full life transformation later, Del is pursuing their dream with their cofounder Don in what manages to be the most functionally chaotic partnership imaginable - hence their studio's name - and they wouldn't have it any other way.
Outside of game development, Del enjoys practicing guitar at odd hours of the night, attending a seemingly unsustainable number of concerts, and purchasing excessive amounts of art to decorate the uptown apartment they live in with their two cats, Wizard and Phantom.
August is a non-binary music producer, multi-instrumentalist, audiovisual engineer, and software developer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Though they were born in St Paul, they've called many places home: they spent their childhood and early adolescence in Alaska, and finished high school and studied music in their mother's hometown in northern Sweden. After many years of nomadism, a long road trip, and a $300 parking violation, they spent a summer in Minneapolis, and decided to set some roots in the twin cities once more.
August has produced records for Twin Cities hip-hop artists, performed in many notable twin cities venues, and has released a full-length album and an EP as Ozzy the Painter, with another album planned for 2024. Their solo music touches on themes of travel, love, queerness, mental illness, radical politics, and their search for community.
Composing for video games has proven a welcome change of pace for August. They bring their usual palette of hip-hop drums, brooding pianos, and carefully interwoven synth melodies, and infuse it with ambient pads and elegiac strings. They take immense inspiration from the soundtracks of Hades, Risk of Rain 2, Cyberpunk 2077, the Fallout franchise, and the Sonic Advance games. (artist's note: just look it up, trust me)
Outside of looking at a computer for work (music composition and software development), August enjoys looking at a computer for fun (playing video games). They enjoy a good concert, a strong coffee, a warm night in with their partner Marit, and a late night out with good friends.
Chris does the code, he likes to do the code.
Jack is an Army Veteran turned software engineer with a love of prose and fine turns of phrase. When longtime friend Don and Del approached with the game concept, he fell in love and found any task the project needed. Contributing in organizing, ideating, and plotting primarily, with some boiler plate code framing as needed, he is one of the first to say "I'm just happy to be here". Outside of wiring up cards, so, so, so many cards, he can be found jamming on a guitar, working excessively at his day job, and spending time with his wife and daughters (who've even said this project is pretty cool).