Nicholas Anthony Bruty or Nick Bruty (born in 1969 in Longfield, Kent[1]) is a British[2] video game designer and entrepreneur.
He was raised and educated in Livingston, Scotland. He made his first step into video games when he was 15, working for company SoftStone with his friend David Quinn. Bruty had done some projects for SoftStone when it went bust in 1984. In 1987 Bruty joined Probe Software, where he met another notable VG figure David Perry. Together they formed a team, with Bruty as artist and Perry as programmer, making arcade classics such as Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper, Savage, Overlord and Dan Dare 3[3].
In 1992 Perry and Bruty went to American division of Virgin Games where they worked on RoboCop versus The Terminator, Alien³, Aladdin and The Jungle Book. In 1993 David Perry formed Shiny Entertainment in California and Bruty and some members of Virgin Games followed in after finishing The Jungle Book. While in Shiny, Bruty led the art direction on cult platformers Earthworm Jim and its sequel, and in Special Edition of first game the level "Big Bruty" was named after him. The finest hour of Bruty in Shiny came with 1997 hit shooter MDK. He made the idea of game itself, designed the idea of sniper aiming, the characters and designed its humorous style[4][5].
After MDK Bruty left Shiny and formed video game company Planet Moon Studios with another ex-Shiny employees Tim Williams and Scott Guest. The company since made notable Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed and Dangerous (influenced by MDK) and Infected. In 2011 Planet Moon closed and the company's staff was acquired by online games developer Bigpoint Games.
In March 2011 Bruty and ex-Planet Moon Studios lead programmer Richard Sun formed new game company Rogue Rocket Games.
He lives in San Francisco, California, where Rogue Rocket Games HQ is placed. His wife is Allyn Bruty, who works for Backbone Entertainment.