Ẹ̀MÍ-DÁAYÉ STUDIOS Spirit of World Creation

About the DeveloperHi, I’m Micah Ross, Founder and Game Director of Ẹ̀mí-Dáayé Studios.Let me be completely transparent: trying to write a sterile, third-person bio just felt wrong. This is a people-first studio, so I want you to know the real, flawed, passionate human behind it. Right now, that human is a Black, queer, solo creator doing everything on his own until the day I can update this page.I’m an artist and storyteller born and raised in Los Angeles, and I’m growing into a writer, which is as new to me as being a game director.Long before the studio, I had jobs and I had businesses. Macy’s and banking were my jobs. At Macy’s gift wrap, people liked my voice so much they’d have me read store announcements, and I always ended them with “and that’s the magic of Macy’s.” That’s where I learned that customer service means making someone feel like a welcome guest in your home. Banking taught me how money and business really work. Network marketing and massage therapy were my businesses, and they taught me the most: people buy into you long before they buy into an opportunity, people can only go as far as their minds will take them, and through massage and Reiki, I learned how much energy, empathy, and care matter. Different paths, same lesson. I was making people feel safe long before I called myself a game director.Games came first, though. In the 1980s, my father, Marcus Ross, put an Atari controller in my hands, and my older brothers took it from there with Street Fighter and Super Mario. You can see my lifelong love, and my occasional cosplay lunacy, on my YouTube channel, Micah Let’s Play.I was already working toward my own studio when I lost my father on July 4th, 2025, his favorite holiday. I still struggle with it, and I can’t talk about him without getting emotional. Losing him made me realize how short life is and what we leave behind. He always taught me, my brothers, and my sister to express ourselves and be who we are, and this studio is how I carry that forward. I hope it outlasts me, and that whoever steps up after me honors what it was made for.For years, my imagination has been running full and overcrowded. It got so comfortable living rent-free in my head that it started inviting its friends. Eventually, I said enough is enough, and it was time for some of them to get out and pay rent. Hence, Juju: Secrets of Peninsula.But there’s a bigger reason I’m here. The gaming industry doesn’t include Black and queer stories the way it should. We’re in the margins, or boxed into stereotypes, and we’re not alone: Latin, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Indigenous Native American communities get sidelined too. I hear the complaints, and I’m one of the people complaining. We want to be seen, heard, and represented, not treated like a corporate checkbox. We want big 3D action games, like everyone else gets. But complaining only gets us so far. In order to see the change I want, I have to become that change, which means doing the work and activating myself. Change doesn’t happen because we wait for it; it happens when somebody starts. So I did.This studio runs on a simple order: people first, artist second, developer third. People first means caring for the person, because the person is the artist and the developer. When you nurture them, you nurture the whole studio, and that pours into the games I make. And here’s how those games are meant to flow: every story is meant to capture the heart, open the mind, and elevate the spirit. I capture the heart by making Black and queer lives relatable, so a player can say “that’s me too,” whether it’s the way a character talks when he’s angry, a rhyme your mama taught you, or something Auntie used to say. I open the mind by showing the whole range: Black and queer characters can be the hero, the villain, the love interest, the messy one, the sexy one, and never just one stereotype. And I elevate the spirit through community, because at the core we all want the same things: love, joy, peace, money, sex, even a little revenge. Same wants, different lens.That’s also why the romance comes first. Love stories should be built on blushing, nerves, and not knowing how to say it, so that when two people finally come together, it feels earned. Our love stories deserve to be the main quest.Juju: Secrets of Peninsula is where it all begins. I believe in it with my whole heart, and I pray it opens the door to many more stories like it, from me and from others. Somewhere out there, someone is going to pick up that controller and feel, maybe for the first time, like they’re finally home.Thank you for stopping by, and for caring about this little corner of the world. It truly means a lot that you’re here. Peninsula has a way of calling its people, and I hope it’s calling you.Welcome home, Peninsulan.