Michael Sellers - CEO and Chief Alchemist

Mike has worked in the games industry since 1994. He has co-founded two other successful game companies, Archetype Interactive (acquired by 3DO in 1996) and The Big Network (acquired by eUniverse in 1999). Mike was the lead designer of Meridian 59, the first 3D massively multiplayer game, and has led other design efforts such as MyPlace (family community and social networking software), SimCity Online, The Sims 2, and Ultima Online 2.0. Mike has spoken multiple times at the Game Developer's Conference, E3, the Austin Game Conference, and other industry conferences (slides for his GDC 2006 presentation on "The Lifecycle of a Small Successful Game Studio" are available here). He is the author of several articles on user-centered development and game design, including "Creating Effective Groups and Group Roles in MMP Games," published on Gamasutra. He has also written a chapter entitled "The Stages of Game Development" for the book "Secrets of the Game Business," published in 2003, and a chapter for the book "Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consquences" entitled "Designing the Experience of Interactive Play." Mike lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, three dogs, a cat, and three sugar gliders.

Craig Fryar - VP Business Development, Producer

Craig has been involved in video game design, development and production since 1992. As Apple Computer’s original "Games Technology Evangelist" he seeded the game developer industry with technology and design guidelines that resulting in large-scale growth in MacOS consumer markets. During his time at Apple he also launched Peninsula Gameworks and co-developed the award winning multiplayer title "Spectre" which sold and licensed 500,000+ units on the Mac, PC and SNES. In the mid-90’s at Interplay Productions he led a design team creating specialty versions of hits like Descent targeted at OEM computer markets. He has since produced various software and hardware, including an award winning 3Dfx graphics accelerator card.

Samantha LeCraft - Game Designer, Sorcerer's Apprentice

Samantha has a long history in the massively multiplayer game industry, having worked in customer service for Meridian 59, SimCity, The Sims, and Ultima Online. Before becoming a Designer, she helped produce Online Alchemy's puzzle games Food Chain and Chrysanthemum. Samantha is an excellent players’ advocate and understands well the importance of fostering a positive player community from the project’s inception.

Lisa Acton-Dippel - Producer

Lisa has been involved in the video game industry since 1992 when she worked in tech support and also QA on various games including: Wing Commander 3 & 4, Crusader, Cybermage, Ultima 7.5 & 8, System Shock & Bioforge. View her Mobygames rap sheet by clicking here. In 1995 she joined Maxis South and produced several game titles including Marble Drop, Full Tilt I & II. She also worked on the game concept and character design for GateWay of Worlds. In 1997 she joined Eclipse Entertainment in Austin and produced projects on various in-house projects and game concepts and designs as subcontracted by Microsoft.

Chris Wassum - Contract Artist

Chris has been involved in designing and creating 2D and 3D artwork and environments for videogames since 2000. He has worked on a number of commercial PC based projects including game projects like Microsoft Casino and Golden Palace.com. He is extremely versatile with 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Painter and other graphics tools and received his degree from the Art Institute of Houston. Chris also holds an Associate’s Degree in Computer Animation.

Eric Andersen - Programmer

Eric has been programming since 1994 and is an avid computer/console gamer. He comes to us from TVG Network, an interactive horse racing television network where he worked as a Staff Engineer. During his time there he designed and implemented an interactive wagering application using the OpenTV SDK as well as working on OpenTV settop box development and writing a mobile wagering application using WAP with .NET 2005.

Patrick Christenson - Programmer

Patrick has been a Game Programmer and CS Instructor a number of years. His most recent game work has been for Public & Multimedia games implementing world builders and optimizing code involving brush manipulation, texturing, and rendering. Patrick still enjoys teaching and considers it some of the most rewarding work he’s ever done. In his spare time he coaches kids co-ed basketball at Dove Spring Recreation center. Patrick and his lovely wife Jamie are currently expecting their second child, due in February.