Nikita Mikros is a game designer/developer, bocce player, living in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He is the founder and CEO of SMASHWORX and Tiny Mantis Entertainment, two independent game studios located in New York City. Mr. Mikros's most current project is a 10 player arcade game he co-designed with Joshua DeBonis. was the recipient of the Developer's Choice Award at Indiecade 2013. In 2018, Killer Queen Black, the new version of the original game, arrived on Nintendo Switch. At SMASHWORX, Mr. Mikros designs and works on original titles including "Propaganda Lander" and his current project "Team Dungeon Force". At Tiny Mantis, Mr. Mikros has worked on many games for clients including Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, LEGO, Bloomberg Tradebook and others. Before his current positions, Mr. Mikros was co-founder of Black Hammer Game. Mr. Mikros was the lead designer of "The Egg Files" which was a 2002 Independent Games Festival finalist and was published by Manifesto Games. In addition, he was lead designer of Supremacy: Four Paths To Power which was also an Independent Games Festival finalist in 2005 and was published by Matrix Games. In addition to electronic games, Mr. Mikros has collaborated with Joshua DeBonis in designing games for the Come Out and Play Festival in New York City. In 2008 they designed "Pigeon Pinata Pummel", and in 2009 they designed "Pitfall! Live at the Tank", which won "Best Spectacle". Finally in 2011 they designed "Killer Queen", which is the field game that provided the inspiration for the arcade game of the same name. "Killer Queen" won "Best in Fest" as well as "Deepest Strategy". He has been interviewed by Polygon, Kotaku and GameSpy. His work has been reviewed by indiestatik, GameDev.net, MacAddict, PC Gamer, AppSpy, and The Portable Gamer. Writing credits include "Using Software Prototypes In Game Design" an article that appeared in the book Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton and Chris Swain. He has taught various multimedia and game design classes at The School of Visual Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, and Seton Hall University. Mr. Mikros received his B.A. in Painting/Studio Art from Queens College and an M.F.A. in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts.
