Game Director

Charlie attended Case Western Reserve University and received a B.S. in Computer Engineering. He worked as a software engineer at IBM, Papyrus, CogniToy and Stainless Steel Studios, on Grand Prix Legends, MindRover and Empire Earth. In May of 2001, he left Stainless Steel to start writing Natural Selection.

Charlie has contributed writings to Game Developer Magazine and Game Design Perspectives and spoke at Casuality (2006). He also spoke at the Game Developer’s Conference in 2011 (The 1 Hour Video Game MBA) and 2013 (The Velveteen Marine).

While still in high school Max worked as the assistant to Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM Research. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 with a B.S. in Mathematics and a double major in Computer Science, Max joined Iron Lore Entertainment (Game Developer Choice Best New Studio) as the first employee.

While at Iron Lore Entertainment, Max served as the Lead Engine Programmer and held a key role in developing the technology and tools behind their first two titles, Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

Art Director

Cory attended the Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Illustration. He worked at Stainless Steel Studios as a digital artist for over five years doing 3D modeling, texturing and concept work on Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. He then worked as Senior Texture Artist and Concept Art on Lair and several unannounced titles at Factor Five.

He and Charlie started working on Natural Selection together in August of 2000 and his artwork has been featured several times in Spectrum and Expose.

Brian (Alpha) joined the team in late 2009 after graduating from the Art Institute of California San Francisco. Before moving here, he worked as a contract 3D Artist on two published PC titles in Birmingham, Alabama.

Initially hired to help with managing the art pipeline, Brian now fills the gap between artists and engine. He has also worked as the editor for several Natural Selection 2 cinematics including the Fade Reveal, Lerk Reveal and Gorge Belly Slide video.

Brian is overall a useless human being unless he is working on games. I wouldn’t trust him in any of the following situations: wrapping a birthday present, farming, space travel or colors. He is a programmer. His beard is also a programmer.

He has worked on a few games before joining Unknown Worlds such as The Da Vinci Code cell phone game and a PC go kart game called Zero Gear. Brian enjoys endlessly “debating” people on a wide range of pointless topics such as oxygen, bear fights and carrot(s).

Dushan hails from London, where he cut his teeth at Sony on The Getaway. There he reveled in intoxicating pursuits like collision detection, memory management and loosely coupled modules.

He moved to the U.S. to work on Fantastic Four, then LucasArts on Lucidity and then was as co-lead on Secret of Monkey Island – Special Edition. Then he built core engine tech at Telltale on many titles including Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead.

Along with a dual cat/beer obsession, Dushan derives a near-unhealthy amount of pleasure from programming. Upon hearing of a mountain of physics code to be untangled and rebuilt, he visibly brightened while his fingers gently started poking the air.

Hugh is Australian, but we try not to hold it against him. He attended the University of New South Wales and received a BCom in Finance and Accounting. For a while, he applied these skills in a big office tower. Wanting a change, he decided to fly across the Pacific Ocean to play video games and make movies all day.

Now he handles our PR, community events, outreach and any other task that doesn’t quite fit into anyone else’s role.

Some of Hugh’s other official duties around the office include gardening, interior design and carpentry.

Steve mostly grew up in California and has been making games (to various degrees of success) since middle school. He got his BS in CS from UC Berkeley, worked at 2K for a year (with Dushan!), and then went on to get his PhD from Cornell University doingprocedural sound research.

In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar, making music of questionable quality, and making his own little indie games. Outside of productive activities, he enjoys dumb conversations about dumb things using dumb words while being dumb on beer. He also enjoys going outside occasionally doing things that involve going fast with the help of nature.

Lilly hails from Nihilistic software in Novato, where she was the first point of contact for the studio and handled administrative and managerial aspects for the company. She loves to handle payroll, HR functions, organize wrap parties and generally help to make our office an amazing place to work.

Lilly hates sunshine so we’ve found the darkest place of our office to keep a smile on her face. She is the new Keeper of the Onos.