Teddy Dief | |
|---|---|
 Dief at the We Are OFK premier in 2022 | |
| Occupation(s) | Game designer, creative director, writer |
| Notable work | |
Teddy Diefenbach, also known as Teddy Dief is an American videogame designer and writer. They worked as a creative director at Square Enix Montreal, directed the game We Are OFK , [1] and was co-designer for the game Hyper Light Drifter . [1] They co-founded the artist collective Glitch City and participate in a yearly charity live-stream called Chocobowl.
Dief was born in Illinois. They graduated from Columbia University, where they studied music, computer science, and Japanese. They later took filmmaking at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. [2]
Dief worked for Disney as a designer on Pirates of the Caribbean Online and for the University of South Carolina School of Cinematic Arts as a game narrative researcher. One of the first game they developed on their own was Kyoto Wild for PC. [3] In 2013 they joined Heart Machine to work on the role playing game Hyper Light Drifter.
Dief left Heart Machine in May 2016 and started work as the creative director of Square Enix Montreal. During this period, they were reportedly working on a game project with Fez programmer Renaud Bédard for two years. On January 29, 2018, Dief announced their resignation after Square Enix shelved the project, citing the company's shift in business strategy. Dief stated that this development marked their return to "full-time indie development". [4] [5]
Dief was the creative director of We Are OFK , a videogame released in 2022 about the origin story of a virtual band called OFK. [6] According to Dief, it is an actual music project and consists of five episodes. [7] [8]
Aside from their design work for several games, Dief also worked as a writer, voice actor, and musician. In We are OFK, Dief provided the voice for the character Luca Le Fae. [9]
Dief is involved in several gaming initiatives. Together with Alex Preston, Beau Blyth, and Samurai Gunn, they co-created Glitch City, a Los Angeles-based game makers and independent artists collective. In 2015, they co-founded Chocobowl, a 48-hour live stream that involves game developers playing Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs). Chocobowl has since been used as a platform to raise money for organizations such AbleGamers and The Bail Project. [1]
Other Credits
| Date | Award / Publication | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 1, 2016 | The Game Awards | Best Independent Game | Hyper Light Drifter [a] | Nominated | [23] |
| December 1, 2016 | The Game Awards | Best Action/Adventure | Nominated | [23] | |
| February 23, 2017 | D.I.C.E. Awards | Role-Playing Game of the Year | Nominated | ||
| March 1, 2017 | Game Developers Choice Awards | Best Debut | Nominated | ||
| March 1, 2017 | Independent Games Festival | Excellence In Visual Art | Won | ||
| March 1, 2017 | Independent Games Festival | Audience Award | Won | ||
| March 22, 2023 | Independent Games Festival | Excellence In Audio | We Are OFK [b] [24] | Nominated | [25] |
| March 22, 2023 | Game Developers Choice Awards | Social Impact | Nominated | [26] | |
| June 9, 2024 | Peabody Awards | Interactive & Immersive | Won | [27] |
Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first entry in the Chrono series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, creator of Enix's Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and author of the Dragon Ball manga series. In addition, Takashi Tokita co-directed the game and co-wrote the scenario, Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, while Masato Kato wrote most of the story. The game's plot follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing game franchises, such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts, among numerous others. Outside of video game publishing and development, it is also in the business of merchandise, arcade facilities, and manga publication under its Gangan Comics brand.
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group, IGF is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition.
Yuji Naka, credited in some games as YU2, is a Japanese former video game programmer, designer and producer. He is the co-creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog series and was the president of Sonic Team at Sega until his departure in 2006.
Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game developer best known for developing games published by Nintendo with the Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, WarioWare, and Wars video game series. Originally, the company was headquartered at the Nintendo Kyoto Research Center in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, but later moved to a building near Nintendo's main headquarters in October 2013. They were also responsible for the creation of various development hardware both first and 3rd party developers would use to make games for Nintendo systems, such as the IS Nitro Emulator, the official development kit for the Nintendo DS.
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department, was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was preceded by the Creative Department, a team of designers with backgrounds in art responsible for many different tasks, to which Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka originally belonged. Both served as managers of the EARD studios and were credited in every game developed by the division, with varying degrees of involvement. Nintendo EAD was best known for its work on games in the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and Wii series.
Crystal Dynamics, Inc. is an American video game developer based in San Mateo, California. The studio is best known for its games in the Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, and Gex series.
Eidos Interactive Limited was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its notable franchises were Championship Manager, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider. Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009.
Akitoshi Kawazu is a Japanese game designer, director, producer and writer. After joining Square in 1985, he went on to become a central developer for the first two Final Fantasy titles, then acted as creator and lead developer for the SaGa series.
Tose Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development company based in Kyoto. It is mostly known for developing Nintendo's Game & Watch Gallery series, various Dragon Ball games, as well as other Nintendo products. Tose has developed or co-developed over 1,000 games since the company's inception in 1979, but is virtually never credited in the games themselves. Tose maintains a policy of having no creative input into the work they do, going so far as to refuse to put their names in the credits for most of the games they work on. As such, Tose has gained a reputation for being a "ghost developer".
Tidus is a fictional character in Square Enix's video game series Final Fantasy and the main protagonist of the 2001 role-playing video game Final Fantasy X. A 17-year-old athlete from the city of Zanarkand, he is transported to the world of Spira after Sin destroys Zanarkand. Shortly after arriving there, Tidus meets the summoner Yuna and her guardians and joins them on a pilgrimage to kill Sin after learning that it is his missing father, Jecht. Tidus has appeared in other video games, including the Final Fantasy X sequel X-2, where he can be recruited as a playable character in the international version. He also appears as a child in the Kingdom Hearts series and in various Square Enix crossover games.
Eidos Interactive Corporation is a Canadian video game developer based in Montreal and part of Embracer Group. The studio was founded by Stéphane D'Astous in 2007 under SCi Entertainment. It became part of Square Enix Europe in 2009 and CDE Entertainment in 2022.
Philippe Poisson, better known as Phil Fish, is a French Canadian former indie game designer best known for the 2012 platform game Fez. He was born and raised in Quebec, where his experiences with Nintendo games in his youth would later influence his game design. He studied game design at the Montreal National Animation and Design Centre, and worked at Ubisoft and Artificial Mind and Movement before starting Polytron in 2008.
Hyper Light Drifter is an action role-playing game developed and published by Heart Machine. The Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X versions were released in March 2016, and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions in July 2016. A Special Edition port of the game, featuring additional content, was released by Abylight Studios for the Nintendo Switch in September 2018, for iOS devices in July 2019 and for Android devices in June 2024.
Heart Machine, Inc. is an American independent video game development studio founded by Alx Preston. The studio is best known for developing Hyper Light Drifter (2016) and Solar Ash (2021).
Square Enix Montréal was a Canadian video game developer based in Montreal. It created the Go series of turn-based puzzle games for mobile devices based on former Eidos Interactive intellectual properties.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is the first expansion pack to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix for macOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows, then later on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. It was released on June 23, 2015, nearly two years after the debut of A Realm Reborn. Naoki Yoshida served as director and producer and Nobuo Uematsu, who had not worked on the title since the ill-fated 2010 launch of the original Final Fantasy XIV, returned to collaborate with Masayoshi Soken on the soundtrack. The expansion pack was released as a standalone product for current players, as well as an "all-in-one" bundle containing A Realm Reborn and Heavensward. The latter was the only way to access the OS X version of the game, which premiered on the same day as the expansion pack's launch.
Bugsnax is an adventure video game developed by independent Chicago-based developer Young Horses. In the game, players explore a mysterious island and attempt to find and capture the eponymous insectoid food creatures. The game was unveiled in June 2020 during Sony's PlayStation 5 live-streamed reveal event. British indie pop band Kero Kero Bonito performed the game's theme song, which was featured in the announcement trailer. The game was released in November 2020 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, as well as macOS and Windows via the Epic Games Store. Versions of the game for Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S released in April 2022, followed by a port for iOS in July 2023.
Solar Ash is an action-adventure platform game game developed by Heart Machine and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was released on December 2, 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows. It was also released via Steam on December 8, 2022, and it was released for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on September 14, 2023. The game's science fiction story explores themes of trauma and moving on from dramatic, devastating life events. It is set in the same fictional universe as Heart Machine's first and previous game, Hyper Light Drifter, but there are no direct connections between the two games' stories.
We Are OFK is an episodic adventure game developed by Team OFK and directed by Teddy Dief. Its five episodes released between August and September 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch. It serves as the fictional biography of the developers' virtual band, OFK.