Mark Venturelli

Mark Venturelli is a Brazilian game designer and studio founder best known as the CEO and creative director of Rogue Snail, the remote indie studio behind Hell Clock and the Relic Hunters series. Before that Venturelli designed for Chroma Squad and co-founded Critical Studio, the team behind Dungeonland, and is one of the most recognizable names in Brazil's independent games scene.

Venturelli started in games in the late 2000s and co-founded Critical Studio, which released the co-op dungeon game Dungeonland in 2013. Venturelli was also a designer on Chroma Squad, Behold Studios' 2015 tactics game about a team of stunt actors running a Power Rangers-style TV show. Funded on Kickstarter, it later reached consoles and mobile through Bandai Namco and secured a royalty agreement with Saban, the owner of Power Rangers.

In 2014 Venturelli co-founded Rogue Snail with Betu Souza and Caio Lima as a fully remote studio with staff spread across Brazil. Its first release, the free twin-stick shooter Relic Hunters Zero (2015), built a large fan base and grew into Relic Hunters Legend, a looter shooter that launched on Steam on August 14, 2025.

Rogue Snail's biggest hit so far is Hell Clock, a roguelike action RPG set in a dark fantasy version of Brazil's War of Canudos, where players control Pajeú, a former slave fighting through a cursed purgatory against a timer. Published by Mad Mushroom, it launched on Steam on July 22, 2025 to strong player reviews, and the studio announced a content roadmap that includes the Cursed War expansion for 2026.

Venturelli is known for design talks and AMAs that argue for transparent game systems and for bringing Brazilian history and culture into games aimed at a global audience.