Angel McCoy, Creative Director / CEO
Hi! I’m Angel, and I’ve been a gamer for a quarter of a century. As a matter of fact, I’ve made it my career.
I received my Bachelor’s Degree in French Literature from the University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana and studied French language and literature at the CIEF (Centre International d’Etudes Françaises) in Dijon, France.
The first tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG) I ever played was Dungeons & Dragons, but I eventually graduated to games like Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, The World of Darkness, and GURPs Horror.
I’ve never been fully satisfied working for others. So, I became a serial entrepreneur. I gave Amway a try back in the 80s, in an attempt to find financial freedom. But the “hard sell” required wasn’t my thing. Early 90s, I started a couple comic and game shops with some dear friends. The shops, Fun-n-Games, opened my eyes to the wonders of geek culture. I made lifelong friends there whom I cherish.
While running Fun-n-Games, I was also pursuing my first true love: storytelling. I won a couple contests with my short fiction and got to meet my writer idol, Neil Gaiman. I was hooked.
At the same time, I entered the world of storytelling for massively multiplayer games. I was a big M.U.S.H. nerd for years and even did some coding for a few of them. With other enthusiasts, I started the Blacksburg Virginia chapter of White Wolf’s World of Darkness live-action roleplaying club. I rose through the ranks as a storyteller in that club until I became the first East Central Regional Storyteller overseeing story for five states and over a thousand players.
My career as a game designer developed naturally as I applied my love for writing to my love for games, like peanut butter and chocolate. Writing Shadowrun reviews for White Wolf magazine led to writing articles with new characters and adventures for games like Tank Girl. Before I knew it, I was writing for the World of Darkness game books (Mage, Changeling, Vampire, Hunter, Werewolf, and Exalted) and various other games such as Millennium’s End, Necroscope, Earthdawn, and Everquest.
I followed the game development siren’s call to Seattle, worked at Wizards of the Coast (WotC), and was the first female game designer on the Dungeons & Dragons team.
Next stop: Microsoft Game Studios. Working at Microsoft was a wild ride! I shipped a bunch of game websites for games including Zoo Tycoon 2, Rise of Nations, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Shadowrun, Crimson Skies, Conker, Blinx, Viva Pinata, Perfect Dark Zero, and many others.
In 2007, I accepted a writer position at ArenaNet. And thus began a new era, in which I found my stride as a writer and game designer. I was brought in to work on Guild Wars 2, and shipped the AAA game five years later. I spent five more years as a Narrative Designer for the Living World project. Working there taught me how joyful it can be to touch players’ lives with your creative work and just how much they could enhance my own life when they reached out to me.
But still, the entrepreneurial spirit in me raised its head again, looked around, and asked, “What have you done for me lately?” So, Games Omniverse and the Danika project were born. Cue the awesome soundtrack.
I’ve been a drooling goober of a fan for puzzle adventure games since I played Mist and King’s Quest made by my hero Roberta Williams. I want to make one. The moment the idea occurred to me, I took the driver’s seat and began partnering with people who would squee when I told them what I was doing and offer to help.
The team formed, and zooooom!
In Fall 2017, after ten years at ArenaNet, I left to pursue making indie games at Games Omniverse. We have a huge story to tell.
Thanks a ton for checking the website out. If you’re interested in helping with our project, you can email me with your resume at angel at gamesomniverse.com. Have a great day!
If you’d like, you’re invited to visit Angel’s personal website where she talks about her fiction and other such adventures.