Meet the Team

Emily Downey

Game Director // San Diego, California

Emily joined the project at its inception and helped write the script and develop 2D assets. Today, as the game director, she leads meetings and collaborates with our team leads to keep the overall vision for Amelia Darnell aligned.

Emily received her B.A. from UC San Diego, majoring in writing and minoring in studio art. Today she works in marketing by day and chips away at painting commissions by night. She enjoys listening to audiobooks, collecting records, and gaming, with a particular love for open world RPGs. Her favorite Nancy Drew game is TRN, with DED and SSH close behind!

Anna Tindal

Production Director // Texas, USA

Anna Tindal is a writer, designer, artist and producer currently serving as Production Director on this project. She received her BFA from the University of Denver in 2019, double majoring in Emergent Technologies and Creative Writing with a minor in History.

​Within the gaming industry, Anna earned her MFA in Game Design and Development from Laguna College of Art and Design. There, she directed her thesis game, Je Me Souviens, leading a team of 15 developers; the project was showcased at the Game Developers Conference in 2023. Professionally, she has contributed to The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed from Obsidian Entertainment and on The Sims 4 expansions Lovestruck and Life & Death from Maxis. In 2025, she was proud to be the first to introduce Nancy Drew to Games Done Quick during Femme Fatales, speedrunning Warnings at Waverly Academy.

Alongside her work in games, Anna has a strong connection to the publishing and writing industry. After graduating from her BA, she worked at the American Numismatic Association as an editorial assistant on The Numismatist. She has also collaborated with the Icarus Writing Collective as a graphic artist on Issue 4, Currents, where she helped with visuals for both the issue itself and the collective’s social media.

Anna is deeply passionate about this project and is excited to help Amelia solve her first case, with hopes of assisting her on many more adventures to come, bringing both her own writing and game development love along the way.

Sydney Sims

Production Assistant // Texas, USA

Sydney (she/her) is an artist-turned-producer who grew up in a small town in Central Pennsylvania, where folklore and mysteries were a huge part of her childhood. She never got into Nancy Drew as a kid (she was more of a Scooby-Doo girl) but she's having a lot of fun going back and experiencing the Nancy Drew games for the first time!

Sydney is currently working towards her BFA in Game Art with a minor in Art History from Laguna College of Art and Design. She loves the administrative work that comes with production but in her free time she still loves to design characters, play video games, and go out for KBBQ. She also loves playing tabletops with her friends, including D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and Pathfinder 2E.

J Pearson

Script Writer // USA

J is one of the very excited to be on the Amelia Darnell team and is looking forward to when everyone can play the game!

Emma Secord

Puzzle Designer // Western Canada

Emma is a Canadian educator with a passion for problem solving, promoting the development of critical thinking skills, and creating fun and engaging activities for her students. Growing up reading mystery novels and playing computer games made her a perfect candidate to join the team as a Puzzle Developer! Emma is also a creative writer and actor, performing both on stage and in front of the camera. She has a BA in Cultural Anthropology and History, and infuses her love of learning and knowledge into each puzzle she works on.

Anna Saum

Researcher, Puzzle Designer // New York City, USA

Anna is a life-long puzzle lover who is living her dream creating challenging riddles and clues for the Airtight Alibi team. Like her fellow teammates, Anna is a massive Nancy Drew fan. When she's not solving ciphers or picking locks, Anna collects rare books and enjoys reading about heists. Her favorite mysterious text is the still-undeciphered Voynich Manuscript.

Laryssa Brooks

Editor // Ontario, Canada

Laryssa Brooks is a writer and editor based in Ontario, Canada, who is editing the game's script and written content as part of the Writing Team. She's a recipient of the Alistair MacLeod Masterful Short Story Award. Pieces she's edited have won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award and the LA Sci-Fi Europa Festival Silver Award and have been nominated for the RED Movie Awards and the Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry. Her writing has appeared in Generation, offSIDE, the Windsor ReView, the Windsor Local, (parenthetical), When Women Waken, and more. Text she's edited has been been published by Black Moss Press, Sterling Lake Books, Netflix, UBC Press, U of T Press, and more. She's been an avid fan of mystery games for over 20 years and is excited to be using her skills and passion to help bring Amelia Darnell to life.

Katherine Bacher

Editor // Washington, USA

Katherine is an award winning, Amazon Kindle #1 Best Selling Author, and Editor, living in the PNW. Having loved the Nancy Drew PC games since their beginning, she jumped at the chance to be a Script Editor for Airtight Alibi. She's a proud graduate of Central Washington University’s print journalism program, and was a copy editor for CWU's The Observer. Go Wildcats! She spends her so-called "free time" with her husband, kid, and pup, while cheering for the greatest sport ever: hockey. Go Tips! Go Kraken! You can read more at her website at www.katherinebacher.com

Allison ​Lorphanpaibul

Lead Programmer // Washington, USA

Allison is our lead programmer. She loves baking and drinking too much tea. Her favorite ND games are Treasure in the Royal Tower and Warnings at Waverly Academy. She currently lives in Washington state with her two cats.

Elaina Cole

Programmer // South Carolina, USA

Elaina is a programmer and a huge mystery fan! When she’s not playing detective investigating a bug, she’s probably running, reading, or playing tennis. Her dog Wendy loves tennis balls and wonders why Elaina tries to hit them away instead of catching them!

Cassie Oveson

Lead 2D Artist and Social Media Manager // Utah, USA

Cassie serves as the Lead Graphic Designer for Airtight Alibi Productions.  As a lifelong lover of mystery games and stories, working on this game has been a fun passion project for her. She says, "Video games have a unique way of telling stories and it has been so much fun seeing my art come to life in this way." Her work can be found glittered throughout the environments, puzzles and menus of our game. When she is away from her desk she can be found painting in her home studio in Salt Lake City, Utah, or playing video games with her son.

Katy133

UX/UI Designer // Canada

Katy is a Canadian animator who enjoys developing independent games in her spare time. She enjoys reading, drawing, writing, and creating user interfaces for games. Katy has been playing the Nancy Drew games since she was a child.

Sarah Elkins

Lead Social Media Manager // California, USA

Sarah is a California-based creative who loves all things related to the arts. They dabble in graphic design, social media marketing, photography, cosplay and more! Her hobbies include playing puzzle games, watching lots of YouTube and cuddling her dog Blackjack.

Joshua Anderson

Lead Environment Artist // USA

Josh is the Lead Environment Artist, mostly working on props and texture design. He has been with the project from the beginning and is excited for everyone to get to see the team's hard work! He enjoys working on all kinds of projects in his spare time and getting his toddler's opinion on his work.

Simone Isner

Environment Artist // USA

Simone is an Environment Artist with experience in modeling, sculpting, making tileable textures, creating foliage, lighting, and set dressing levels and environments. She graduated LCAD with a BFA in Game Art and worked at WB Games as an Associate Environment Artist. She grew up playing video games and strives to make sure each environment she creates tells a story and has character of its own. She’s so excited to bring environments to life with the Airtight Alibi team! You can see her work here.

Saeed Arasteh

Environmental Artist // Iran

Saeed has been a huge fan of video games since childhood. Nothing brings more excitement to his life than playing games. He is our 3D environment artist, working with Blender to create eye-catching areas our dearest Amelia Darnell will travel through.

He is also a level designer working with UE5, a game content writer with many publications on various gaming websites, and a narrative designer.

Saeed loves playing story-driven games and has spent a lot of time playing Horizon Franchise, The Last of Us, and recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. He also plays Fortnite a lot, so if you need a sweaty teammate, hit him up.

Shawn Dinh Stephens

Technical Artist // Washington, USA

Shawn is an artist with a passion for VFX, illustration, 3D art, animation, and above all else, making things that make other people's lives a little easier. He's currently working to create environment art tools for the Airtight Alibi team. You can check out his work here. In his free time, you can find him eating baked goods and discovering that the tea he steeped is gone.

Anne Allan

Lead Character Artist // Los Angeles, California

Anne is the Lead Character Designer at Airtight Alibi. When she's not drawing emojis of Wilman as a cowboy, she works at Cartoon Network as a Color Designer in Los Angeles with her two terrible cats. Outside of art, she loves puzzles, mysteries, video games, D&D, finely aged memes, sushi, and roller skating.

Shugulup

Character Artist // Chicago, Illinois

Shugulup (she/her) is a 2D artist, nerd, and lifelong fan of video games, particularly of the Nancy Drew games as her special interest since game 1. Mixing her passions for art and games with the Airtight Ailibi team is an honor and an exciting new challenge.

Outside that, Shugulup enjoys habitat restoration projects, DIY, and time in nature.

Annie Schweiger

Character & Concept Artist // Minneapolis, Minnesota

Annie is a Graphic Designer and Illustrator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She grew up playing the Nancy Drew games with her sister, so she was excited to join the Airtight Alibi crew to help create something just as special. Outside the studio she enjoys, antiquing, puzzling, crafting, and binge watching zombie movies

Elijah Ramirez

Lead Composer // San Diego, California

Elijah has been a Nancy Drew games fan ever since he was a toddler, and has grown up listening to all the wonderful music that the games had to offer. This music, along with the music from several other of his favorite games, inspired him to pursue his passion in writing music for video games, and it’s his dream come true to be able to write for a game that is so inspired by the games that started him down that path.

​He lives in San Diego, CA and enjoys to read, hike, and of course play music!

Charity Johnson

Composer // Queensland, Australia

Charity is a pianist, musician, and sound engineer. She is super excited to be working with Airtight Alibi on this game.

You might also know Charity as ChazVsJazz. She has completed over 100 piano transcriptions from the Nancy Drew game series and enjoys studying the past and present happenings at HeR Interactive.

Natalie Anderson

Sound Lead // Utah, USA

Natalie is an elementary school teacher with a passion for arts and gaming! She grew up playing the Nancy Drew games and they became an integral part of her life. Natalie was one of the founding members of Airtight Alibi Productions. She has worked in many areas of the company, but is currently the voice acting and SFX lead.

Kamryn Kubose

Foley Artist // California, USA

Kamryn is a long-time Nancy Drew and mystery fan from Central California. She picked up her first yellow hardcover in the 4th grade and hasn't looked back. During the pandemic, she started an Etsy shop called rikakubdesigns, where she designs and sells various Nancy Drew-inspired fan merchandise including pins, keychains, and personalized ID cards. She recently received her M.S. degree in Environmental Policy and Management.

Trevor Kubose

Foley Artist // California, USA

Trevor was introduced to Nancy Drew computer games from his big sister Kamryn when he was barely tall enough to see over the computer desk. Different from other games out there, he enjoys solving puzzles and questioning suspects in the 2-D point and click style. He particularly likes to find all the ways to "fatally make an error" in the games. Trevor graduated with a B.M. degree in Jazz Studies and Performance.

Julia Holdnack

Game Dev Advisor // East Coast, USA

Julia was our lead 3D environment artist for many years and today fills an advisor role as she focuses on other endeavors. Julia is the developer behind Default Cube Games' critically acclaimed Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit and is also known for the Nancy Drew: Treasure in the Royal Tower Unreal Engine remaster. 

In her free time - when she's not working on game dev projects - she enjoys hanging out with her husband, son, two cats, and lizard.

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Former Team Members

We're grateful to the many skilled developers who have contributed to this project over the years. Though they're no longer actively involved, their work helped shape the game and brought it to where it is today.

• Sophia Tran: CEO, Programmer
• Elizabeth Srsic: Art Director, Writing Director
• Huw Miller: 2D Artist, Sound Lead, Website Designer
• Calina Herman: Puzzle Designer
• Alicia Mello: Executive Assistant
• Liberty White: 2D Artist
• Ally Gray: Character Artist
• Pats Santini: Character Artist
• Ailén Báez K: Character Artist