Executive Team

Brayden William Blaine Olson | Founder/CEO

Brayden built Novel, Inc. from a single person company in a dorm room to a venture backed startup in Seattle, Washington that has been featured in The New York Times, Business Week and Xconomy as well as being the recipient of multiple accolades and global awards.

Amongst these, Novel was selected by Entrepreneurs’ Organization as the student run enterprise of the year for the Pacific Northwest in 2009, and one of the top 30 such enterprises in the world. In this same competition, Novel also received the Pacific Northwest Innovation Award from Microsoft due to our orientation and strategy that will revolutionize the video game industry.

Bill George, Professor of Management at Harvard Business School and one of PBS’s Top 25 Business Leaders of the Past 25 Years, says of Brayden, “I am absolutely convinced this young man will do staggering things within his lifetime.” Bill George is the CEO who grew Medtronic into the world’s largest medical technology company and author of the BusinessWeek best-sellers True North and Authentic Leadership.

“The buzz around (Brayden) is that he might well be Seattle’s next Bill Gates or Howard Schultz. No pressure, though.” – Xconomy.com

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Mike Marr | Creative Director

Mike has over seven years professional experience in the gaming industry and has shipped seven multi-million dollar projects including two as Lead Designer. Several of the games including Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, on which he was the Lead Gameplay Designer, have sold over one million copies and have been critically acclaimed. Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance received 8.5 out of 10.0 from Gamespot, and a 9.6 user score on Metacritic.

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Elijah Tate | Art Director

Elijah worked as a Lead Environment Artist on OurWorld — a shipped MMO title with over 2 million current users. Furthermore, Elijah has held a Lead Artist title on a soon-to-be-released Xbox Live title. Elijah graduated from DigiPen with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Animation.

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Philip Borgnes | Executive Producer

With a broad background in software and content, Philip brings over 20 years experience managing and producing for companies such as Microsoft, Aldus, Bungie, ScreenLife and others. From the early multimedia days when CD-ROM-based content was hot to working as Post Production Supervisor for Halo3, Philip has sought to add rich and compelling content to all the products he has worked on. Philip has a degree in Anthropology/Linguistics from The University of Chicago as well as certifications in Film, Software Development, and Technical Writing and as a Scrum Master.

Paul Furio | Technical Director

Paul brings over fifteen years of professional software development experience to Novel, ranging from control systems and finance applications to game and entertainment titles on the Xbox, Xbox 360, PC, and Web.  In addition to work on franchises such as Total Annihilation, Harry Potter, and Space Quest, while at Microsoft Paul was a key contributor to the launch of both Forza Motorsport and 1 vs. 100, the first Massively Multiplayer Game Show on XBox Live Primetime Network.  Paul served as Lead Developer at Playdom Seattle, managing a diverse team in spinning up technology for a new Social Gaming title.  Paul holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Team

Art

Keenan Ray Purk Jr. | Production Art Generalist

Keenan worked as an Environment Artist at ArenaNet, a leading MMO developer owned by NCSoft, on Guild Wars 2 before transitioning to work at Novel Interactive. Keenan graduated top of his class, with honors, from DigiPen with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Animation.

Greggory Bryan Metzler | Production Art Generalist

Greggory will graduate at the top of his class, with honors, from DigiPen with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Animation next month in April 2010. During his time at DigiPen he worked on two videogame projects. Additionally, Greggory was the only DigiPen Student to receive the Washington Award for Vocational Excellence for early excellence demonstrated in the field of fine art, which allowed him to attend DigiPen on scholarship.

Kieran Lampert | Concept and 3D Artist

Kieran is currently a senior at DigiPen working towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Animation. He has worked on several student game projects during which he has held the roles of Art Director, Concept Artist, and 3D Character Artist. Most recently, his student game, “Starfall: Alyssa’s Adventure”, was the winner of five awards at the annual DigiPen Game Awards, including Best 3D Visual Design, Best Character, and Best Game Overall.

Brandt Andrist | Concept and 3D Artist

Brandt is currently a senior at the Digipen Institute of Technology studying to get a Bachelor’s of Find Arts in Production Animation. He has worked from concept to completion on two student films and two student game projects, serving as the art director and concept artist for all. In addition to interning at Novel Interactive, he is working as the design lead on his third and final student film.

Design

Ben Frazier | Lead Technical Designer

Ben was the recent recipient of the 2010 Indie Game Challenge Grand Prize of $100,000 for his design work on the videogame Gear. Following that, Ben worked as lead designer on the 15-person game team Gattai, the largest and most studio-like team in DigiPen history. He is a senior at DigiPen and will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and a minor in Mathematics.

Jonathan Stickles | Gameplay Designer

Jonathan has worked on and completed five game projects, working as a designer on four and an engineer on three. Most recently he worked as lead designer on the 15-person team Gattai, the largest and most studio-like game team in DigiPen history, finishing the project after Ben stepped down to join Novel. Jonathan is a senior at DigiPen where he will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Game Design.

Ryan Hickman | User Interface Designer

Ryan Hickman has worked as a designer on three game projects and as an artist on two. He is one of a select few students to flagship DigiPen’s Bachelor of Arts in Game Design degree, and is currently a senior in the program. Ryan has an extensive background in MMOs, having led three distinct, successful raiding guilds in World of Warcraft.

Scott has worked on four game projects as a freelance game designer. He is also an accomplished database administrator and data architect, with 10 years of experience designing and building enterprise-class online applications which support thousands of users. Scott graduated from Penn State with a degree in Logistics.

Engineering

David Yoshio Yamanoha | Engine Architect

David has completed five game projects to date from academic-to-commercial, start-to-finish. He has previous experience shipping these game titles both in start-up environments, such as SnapVine, and corporate environments, such as HER Interactive. David is a graduate of DigiPen with a Bachelor of Science degree in Real-Time Interactive Simulations with a minor in Mathematics.

Peter Dean Wilcox Clark III | Tools Engineer

Peter has worked on numerous software projects, predominantly in mathematical research, as well as two previous game projects. In mathematical research, he formerly worked on the University of Washington’s high-profile, large scale math research software suite known as SAGE. Peter graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Mathematics.

Charles Engelhard | Gameplay Engineer

Charles has worked on three different game projects from start to finish, two of these as technical director. He was a founding member and the technical director for the 15-person game team Gattai, the largest and most studio-like team in DigiPen history. Charles is currently a senior at DigiPen Institute of Technology where he will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation.

Cory McCullough | Networking Engineer

Cory has worked as a key engineer on three different game projects, filling the additional role of producer on two of these. He has written two full networking engines from scratch, his passion and skill for which set him apart from his peers. Cory is a senior in DigiPen’s Bachelor of Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation program.

Byron Strasburger McMullen | Web Developer

Byron has worked as the instructor lead of the iTeam, a heavily independent student team that generates curriculum for a wide range of technical topics, for the past 3 years.  His work there included the development of curriculum to teach student, staff, and faculty the fundamentals of web development.  His lead role involved numerous side web application development projects both within the team and the entire organization.  Byron recently graduated from the University of Washington with dual degrees in both Informatics, with a focus on human computer interaction, and Economics.