William Pugh (game designer)

William Pugh
Pugh presenting at the 2015 Game Developers Conference
Occupation	Game designer
Known for	The Stanley Parable

William Pugh is a game designer best known for his work on The Stanley Parable. In 2015, he opened an indie game development studio, Crows Crows Crows.

William Pugh's parents are art teachers. He developed an interest in video games after playing a Nintendo 64 during a hospital visit when he was six. He studied at the Leeds College of Art for two weeks, but dropped out to work on video games. Pugh taught himself video game environment design through working on modifications, or mods, of video games by Valve Corporation. He made levels for Team Fortress 2, campaigns for Left 4 Dead 2, and puzzles in Portal. His work earned him a Saxxy Award, a fan-voted award for Team Fortress 2-based creations.

Pugh first heard of the Source engine mod of Half-Life 2 known as The Stanley Parable from Minecraft creator Markus Persson's Twitter feed. Pugh wanted to work on a larger project and so contacted the mod's creator, Davey Wreden. They decided to work on a remastered, standalone version of the The Stanley Parable together. Development of the full game took two years, mainly through remote collaboration software Dropbox and Skype. The final release was popularized by YouTube personalities including PewDiePie. Pugh started an unnamed development studio following the game's release to work on several projects, saying that "we've got the money and freedom to just go wild, so we've been doing exactly that". Pugh presented on The Stanley Parable's development at the 2015 Game Developers Conference. Reflecting on the game's release, he said he was less interested in the technical work of sound and texture editing, and would instead prefer to outsource those jobs to focus on writing.