The Studio
The Armoured Pug
The Armoured Pug is an independent Canadian studio and publisher creating original worlds, stories, and interactive experiences while supporting select creative and technical projects across the games and simulation industries.
Who We Are
Independent by Design
Founded by Ryan Beland, The Armoured Pug brings together technical development, creative direction, worldbuilding, and publishing under one independent studio.
The studio grew from years of work across game development, simulation, technical art, tools, and interactive experiences. That background continues to shape how projects are approached: with an emphasis on strong foundations, thoughtful systems, clear creative direction, and the freedom to follow an idea where it needs to go.
Today, The Armoured Pug develops original intellectual property while continuing to contribute specialised technical and creative expertise to select external projects.
What We Do
Across Worlds and Mediums
Game Development
From early concepts and systems design through playable development, The Armoured Pug creates and contributes to interactive experiences built around atmosphere, meaningful mechanics, and player agency.
Publishing
The studio publishes original fiction and related works, beginning with Where Fate Breaks, the first published novel set within the Chronicles of Arynbel universe. Publishing allows the worlds developed at The Armoured Pug to exist beyond a single medium and reach readers as well as players.
Consulting & Contract Development
Drawing on experience in game development, simulation, technical art, tools, optimisation, prototyping, and production workflows, The Armoured Pug supports studios and organisations facing specialised creative or technical challenges.
Worldbuilding & IP Creation
Original settings are developed as cohesive worlds rather than isolated projects. Narrative, history, visual identity, systems, geography, cultures, and the rules that hold a setting together are built with the expectation that they may support stories across multiple formats.
Original Worlds
Chronicles of Arynbel
Chronicles of Arynbel is The Armoured Pug's original dark-fantasy setting and the studio's primary creative universe.
What began as a worldbuilding project has grown into a setting designed to support fiction, games, visual development, and future interactive work. Its stories explore fate, doctrine, memory, power, and the consequences of a world whose divine order is beginning to fracture.
The Chronicles of Arynbel website serves as the public archive for that world, preserving its lore while providing a home for the works created within it.
Publishing
Stories Beyond the Screen
Publishing is now part of The Armoured Pug's creative work alongside game development and interactive media.
Where Fate Breaks marks the first published novel within Chronicles of Arynbel, bringing the setting to readers through long-form fiction. Future publishing may continue to explore the world through novels and other formats as the universe expands.
Each published work remains part of the same broader setting represented throughout the Arynbel archive, allowing readers to move between the stories themselves and the deeper history, factions, regions, and natural world surrounding them.
Our Values
How We Approach the Work
Creativity
Ideas are given room to develop their own identity. Whether building an original world or solving a production problem, the goal is not simply to reproduce what already exists.
Collaboration
Strong work is rarely created in isolation. The Armoured Pug works with trusted artists, editors, developers, designers, and other specialists whose expertise helps shape each project.
Creative Courage
Independent work sometimes means making difficult choices, changing direction when the work demands it, and pursuing ideas before their outcome is guaranteed. The studio values deliberate decisions over safe ones made only because they are familiar.
Across every project, the aim is the same: approach the work with care, precision, and enough curiosity to make something worth remembering.
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