Our story

Tired of waiting for permission

We started Frame Story because we were tired of watching brilliant people burn out in studios that forgot why games matter.

Why “Frame Story”?

A story within a story

A frame story (also called a frame narrative or framing device) is a literary technique where an outer narrative sets the stage for one or more inner stories. Think of it as a story that contains other stories — like opening a book to find another book inside.

Classic examples include One Thousand and One Nights, where Scheherazade tells tales within tales to survive each night, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where layered narrators reveal the story from multiple perspectives.

We chose this name because it reflects what we do: we build the frame — the studio infrastructure, tools, and support — so that the creators inside can tell their own stories. Every game that comes out of Frame Story is a story within our story.

We grew up on games that trusted players to feel, think, and explore. Games like Inside, Journey, Little Nightmares, and Hollow Knight proved that small teams with strong vision could create experiences that rival anything from the biggest studios.

But the industry makes it hard. Brilliant people burn out chasing someone else's vision. Creative voices get buried under corporate priorities. The magic that made us fall in love with games gets lost somewhere between the pitch deck and the shipping deadline.

Frame Story exists to fix that.

The collective

A studio that works for you

Creative Pods

Semi-autonomous game teams that decide what to build, who to work with, and how to build it. Full creative autonomy within a shared ecosystem.

70/30 Revenue Share

Creators receive 70% of net revenue. The studio retains 30% for operations and reinvestment. Your game, your reward.

Shared Backbone

Frame Story handles incorporation, legal, accounting, publishing ops, tooling, and funding pathways — so you can focus on making your game.

Own Your Work

This isn’t a publisher deal. You own your game, your IP, and your creative decisions. We’re the infrastructure, not the gatekeeper.

The founders

Who we are

A

Anthony Perez Alfaro

Creative Director

Game producer and audio expert with 4+ years across AAA and indie titles. Led teams on projects including Skydance’s Behemoth VR. Drives Frame Story’s artistic vision, game design, and audio production.

A

Adam Marks

Director of Operations

Operations strategist with a Berklee College of Music background. Builds the internal systems that help teams scale with clarity and efficiency. Manages Frame Story’s legal, business, and organizational infrastructure.

Jon Martin

Jon Martin

Director of Product

Product strategist with a background spanning design, ceramics, photography, and technology. Leads product strategy, technology decisions, and launch planning at Frame Story.

The collective

The team

Engineering

B

Bradley Tidwell

Lead Engineer

Full-stack game engineer handling everything from GUI systems to server-side infrastructure. Manages technical onboarding and has held tech lead positions across game and enterprise projects.

R

Ryan Davidson

Engineer

Contributing to Frame Story’s engineering and technical infrastructure.

I

Iris Zhang

Engineer

Contributing to Frame Story’s engineering efforts.

Art

Britney Winthrope

Britney Winthrope

Art Director & Concept Artist

Art director and concept illustrator specializing in character design and visual direction. Credits include The Dragon Prince, 3D Bitmoji at Snap, and VR experiences. Leads interdisciplinary creative teams across novel platforms.

W

Wilmar Arroyave

Lead Artist

Contributing to Frame Story’s visual art and creative production.

Sheldon French II

Sheldon French II

Lighting Artist

Defines Cluck’s mood and visual identity — authoring the lighting bible, color script, and time-of-day moments so emotion reads at a glance.

T

Tomas Gomez Estrada

Texture Artist

Contributing to Frame Story’s visual art and creative production.

R

Reeves Swartout

VFX Artist

Contributing to Frame Story’s visual art and creative production.

M

Matt Watson

Junior Artist

Contributing to Frame Story’s visual art and creative production.

Animation

J

Justin Cichon

Senior Animator

RISD graduate with 12+ years of professional animation experience. FX animator on Amazon Prime’s Niko and the Sword of Light at Titmouse, and credits on Emmy award-winning PBS shows including Word Girl.

A

Andrew Kim

Concept Artist & Animator

Contributing to Frame Story’s visual art and creative production.

Design

K

Kevin Paskowski

Level Designer

Game designer with 14 years of professional game industry experience spanning game design, UI/UX, art production, and 2D/3D art. Previously held a director-level position at Zynga.

B

Bennett Jobling

Game Designer & Writer

Game designer and writer with a decade of experience in level, systems, narrative, and UX design for mobile and VR. Lead Designer on Life is Strange: Double Exposure. Credits on Oxenfree 2 for level design, puzzle design, and narrative.

J

Jon Mendez

Product Designer

Multidisciplinary creative leader with 15+ years of design experience across tech, entertainment, and gaming. Previously Senior Product UX/UI Designer at Irreverent Labs and Creative Director at Summer Design Studio.

K

Kevin

Designer

Contributing to Frame Story’s design work.

Sound & Music

K

Kyle Riccio

Senior Sound Designer

Contributing to Frame Story’s audio and sound design.

E

Emily Hopkins

Game Composer

Contributing to Frame Story’s audio and sound design.

R

Russ Fro

Game Composer

Contributing to Frame Story’s audio and music production.

M

Meggie-Elise

Voice Actor

Professional voice actor with 8+ years of experience in ADR, animation, commercials, and video games. Credits include SPY x FAMILY, Genshin Impact, In the Clear Moonlit Dusk, and Detective Conan.

Advisors

Guided by veterans

J

Jason Shankel

Game Development Advisor

Veteran game developer and filmmaker with credits dating back to 1993. Worked at Maxis alongside Will Wright as a universe prototyper on Spore, building the ParticleMan tool that simulated gravitational dynamics for the space phase.

C

Chong Ahn

Industry Advisor

VP and Head of Americas at Mythical Games. Previously Head of Product Management at EA, and held director roles at Scopely, NCSOFT, and Take-Two Interactive.

Standing on the shoulders of

Studios we admire

Thatgamecompany

Journey, Sky

Playdead

Limbo, Inside

Supergiant Games

Hades, Transistor

Annapurna Interactive

Publisher of meaningful indie games