Shay Moradi

I co-founded Running in the Halls in 2009, with two fantastically talented people (Sam Croft & Alison Mealey) who I’ve been great friends with for the best part of two decades. There I worked on Apps, Games, Experiences and interactive consultancy for services and products by larger agencies.

During this time we were featured on UK TV on no fewer than ten occasions and helped achieve a Guinness World Record for Bandai Namco and the Gadget Show which I’m immensely proud of.

During my time at Running in the Halls a lot of what I did was flavoured by things that I was interested in. As well as client products, we created (Librarygame) a product focused on enhancing interactions in Academic Libraries using the language and mechanics of competitive social games (Leaderboards, Achievements, Beautiful visual design).

At RITH my contributions were mainly business development focussed but being in a small studio I absolutely loved how hands on I could be. All the way from pre-production activities through to production, whether it was design, coding or project management.

Some of that business development revolved around potting patterns, nurturing really great connections, but most importantly it was really about getting to grips with a clients intention, driving at the hard questions and engaging with the broader creative community.

We looked after our clients projects as though they were our own and put interestingness ahead of profit. I spent a lot of time, reading, thinking, corresponding and writing and loved every second of it.

We never had to pitch.

When I wasn’t working at RITH, I spearheaded a research initiative working on a design fiction in the form of a game called REON, the company was called Grind Games, my goal was to immerse myself in the culture of games creation, create prototypes and refine my design skills while reading on theories of what makes games fun. It was my own University course in Games Design.

In 2016 I launched an independent venture called Minuo (from the Latin, I make smaller), where I’m collaborating on a limited basis to make small games that embody the indie spirit and play with some of the game mechanics I learnt about. One of those games was Frustratris in collaboration with Creative Ox, this was a game which I overhauled visually and gave some interaction design direction to.