Diane snuck in many early mornings and late nights to play Alex Kidd on the Sega Master as a child, and logged too many hours into Diablo as a teenager. Her sleep schedule was a mess, sure, but it was those formative years that enamored her with video games and how they’re made. The video game industry seemed impenetrable as a career; she was convinced they were too complicated to make, and she couldn’t imagine finding a place where she could belong within the male-dominated profession. But Diane persisted, eventually moving to Montreal to pursue that dream, after hearing it was a growing hub for game development. She landed jobs like working at Turbulent Games for Star Citizen, Behaviour Interactive, and most recently, Square Enix Montreal as a back-end developer. When Square Enix Montreal shut down in 2022, she didn’t think she’d find a team quite as special again. To her surprise, she feels superbly lucky to have found a new home at Crop Circle Games that feels just as welcoming with its own unique identity.

Favorite Games: Persona series, TF2, Dragon Ball FighterZ, FF 1-10, Yakuza series, Zelda series, Hades, Puzzle Bubble, Diablo 2 (forever <3)

Peter’s love for video games started on the Commodore 64 playing Silkworm and Boulder Dash with his father. He spent countless hours with his friends playing couch co-op, hotseat, online and LAN games. Favorites included Diablo, StarCraft, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Counter-Strike, Golden Axe and, when the stars aligned, 16 player Halo LANs. Without realizing it, Peter started programming when he was 9, designing text based choose your own adventures in QBasic with a friend. After getting his degree in Computer Science, coincidental luck led him to a job at PikPok, New Zealand’s oldest game developer. There he cut his teeth on console development, and over the course of 15 years worked on several mobile games as a Lead Programmer. Peter delights in creating entertaining experiences and finds the nature of video games to be the peak format for immersing a wide array of audiences.

Favorite Games: Final Fantasy VII, God of War (2018), Resident Evil 4, Ocarina of Time, Factorio, Hollow Knight

Jess’s gaming days started with the Atari 2600. She vividly remembers her mother playing Space Invaders late into the night, listening to the pew-pew sounds in the next room as she rolled the scoreboard over. Growing up with a hobbyist editor for a father, she sought out a career in film and television before discovering games were being made only a stone's throw away from the Hollywood film sets. Jess transitioned to the gaming industry in 2000 as an external producer at Sony Santa Monica before moving to the internal development team as a designer on the PS2 original, God of War. A lover of cats, she has found great joy in herding them towards a focused and shared vision at studios like Warner Brothers Games, Undead Labs, and Ember Entertainment.

Favorite Games: Animal Crossing, Super Mario 3, Viva Pinata

After working on an Easter special in the south suburbs of Chicago in 1999, Niraj found a serious love for animation and has never looked back. From the depths of low-budget television shows, Niraj emerged to join the team at Sony Online Entertainment, where he helped ship PlanetSide, EverQuest 2, and Dark Kingdom. He took a chance as an early team member of a start-up company: Green Monster Games/38 Studios in Boston. After its demise, (and a handful of years he calls his own personal dark ages), he moved to Austin where he joined Arkane Studios. There, he contributed to games such as Prey, Typhon Hunter, Mooncrash, RedFall, and even had a chance to lend a hand to Wolfenstein II. Niraj operates on the following philosophy: Gameplay is king, push everything as far as possible, and when in doubt- bribe your engineer.

Favorite Games: Anything old school Lucas Arts, Golden Eye, Wind Waker, Dishonored, Destiny 2, Horizon Zero Dawn 2, and BeatStar on iOS

When Allena isn’t curled up with a good, (or even bad), sci-fi novel, she’s busy dissecting and improving the innerworkings of our art team’s toolset. While tinkering within the guts of 3D software packages at San Jose State University, she discovered a love for picking apart the technical aspects that make art both functional and beautiful. At Funomena, she brought her flair for whimsical styles and story-rich environments to the award-winning VR game Luna. Her most rewarding work comes from empowering her teammates to develop and craft immersive experiences, as she’s previously done, for the Magic Leap One, mobile VR devices, and Roblox.

Favorite Games: Oxygen Not Included, Massive Chalice, Into the Breach

Jen’s journey into games began as a child, when her dad showed her how to repeatedly spam a function key to enter MS DOS through the BIOS so she could play her favorite 3D dinosaur game. Outside, Jen was a playground dungeon-master and avid daydreamer, hobbies that eventually evolved into text roleplaying, mucking around in the Starcraft II Map Editor, and creating elaborate D20 campaigns in World of Warcraft. When the opportunity arrived to work on World of Warcraft as a quest designer, she took a leap of faith. Three expansions and hundreds of quests later she began her next adventure on New World at Amazon Games. She was a significant contributor to re-imagining the starting experience during New World's first anniversary. Jen’s mission as CCG's Principal Content Designer is to create compelling, action-packed, and evocative storytelling content that uplifts as much as it inspires.

Favorite Games: Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Ori and the Blind Forest, Okami, World of Warcraft

Eris loves finding new ways to connect people through meaningful experiences. To this end, she has performed in venues as different as experimental music festivals, symphony halls, and DIY punk shows. Later in life, she discovered a knack for creating these experiences through games and has been designing and coding video games ever since. To that end, she's worked on mobile games at SkyVu, AR/VR games and experiences at Funomena, and the latest upcoming title from Giant Squid. Outside of games and music, you'll find her organizing and working with community groups in Oakland where, as in all things, she is trying to imagine and create what is new, what is next, what is missing.

Favorite Games: Mutazione, Bloodborne, ICO, Inscryption, Anodyne 2

Jeremy cut his gaming teeth on the Commodore Amiga before he began roping his mother into co-op sessions of World of Illusion on the Sega MegaDrive. It was while hanging out in IRC channels and scripting his own version of games like Cheat! and a Pokémon battle simulator, that he discovered his knack for programming. He turned his hobby into a career at PikPok in Wellington before moving to Canada to work at Ubisoft Toronto on Watch Dogs: Legion. Jeremy’s enthusiasm for food has taken him to six continents, but he'll always treasure trips back to his homeland, Aotearoa New Zealand, where he fills his luggage with enough feijoa flavored candies and Whittaker's chocolates to survive until his next visit.

Favorite Games: Final Fantasy VII, Starcraft, Pokemon Gold

Growing up, Jason was fortunate enough to be surrounded by the joys of creativity and stretching his imagination, with gaming and music playing a huge role in that enjoyment. After taking a brief stint at chasing the musician's dream, he couldn't resist the creative lure and challenging road that game development had to offer... the steady paycheque was nice too! Now with over 13 years of experience working in the games industry, Jason enjoys the ever-evolving process of helping navigate art teams through all the ups and downs of development, while focusing on the health and wellness of everyone involved. From AAA to small indie endeavors, he has yet to find anything that surpasses the pure enjoyment of game development.

Favorite Games: Journey, Signalis, Final Fantasy 9

From a young age Sebastien was drawn to two things: video games and music. A huge fan of JRPGs, he spent his free time oscillating between rocking on his guitar and immersing himself in digital worlds. Little did he know, the perfect career combining his two passions was waiting for him. After working as an engineer and producer in the music industry for many years, Sebastien joined the sound team at Gameloft in 2011. His talent and passion for audio quickly propelled him to the position of World Audio Manager, where he worked on over 25 hit titles. Sebastien's career continued to soar as he joined Square Enix Montreal as Audio Director, where he played a crucial role in the development of many titles including Hitman Sniper: The Shadows, Tomb Raider Reloaded, and Space Invaders Hidden Heroes. Today, Sebastien leads the audio department at Crop Circle Games, where he continues to push the boundaries of game audio design. His passion for both the creative and technical aspects of game audio is unwavering, and he still can’t believe that he gets to do what he loves for a living.

Favorite Games: Crystalis, Final Fantasy VII – IX , The Xenoblade Series, The Souls/Borne Series

A highly technical craftsman, Nick has lent his expertise in systems design to games like State of Decay 1&2, Guild Wars, and moment to moment gameplay for Gigantic. As Game Director at Wonderstorm, he guided the interactive adaptation of the hit Netflix show The Dragon Prince, while establishing foundational systems and implementation pipelines. At CCG, Nick translates the “what ifs?” and the “wouldn’t it be cools?” into tangible, hands on experiences; always striving to improve the core game loops and tirelessly iterating until he’s found the fun. While Nick's gaming roots started in competitive online play in the Tribes 2 and UT2k3 communities, his true passion lies in bringing players together in memorable experiences such as those he shares at home with his son or online with faraway friends.

Favorite Games: Dark Age of Camelot, Tribes 2, the entire Souls series

When Esther reflects on her decision to join the game industry, she admits that she chose her career a little impulsively and is happy to say she’s never looked back. She has fuzzy memories of stumbling upon old game engines and poking around in their guts to discover what made them tick. As a kid, she would get lost in the world of the Nancy Drew video games and even dreamed of someday working on them. Whether it was fate or a coincidence, these early inspirations led her to choose an education in digital art, then later to her first job as a 3D Environment Artist. When Esther learned there was a role that balanced two things she enjoyed: technical and artistic skills, she made the switch to visual effects. Since then, Esther has contributed VFX to games such as Anacrusis and Life is Strang: True Colors.

Favorite Games: The Return of the Obra Dinn, Don't Starve, No More Heroes

Chris’s love of video games started as a kid, playing Zool and Sonic on his Mega Drive. His art career kicked off in Australia where he did freelance 3D modeling work. His 15-year career kicked off in Australia with freelance 3D modeling work. Since then, Chris has collaborated on a variety of projects to develop and implement character pipelines- including how to make all those costume swaps and customization options functional. His passion lies in the creation of unique and multifaceted characters while exploring a wide range of styles. When Chris isn’t sculpting colorful characters, he carries his love of building into construction and renovation projects.

Favorite games: Rimworld, Dishonored, Kenshi

Jonathan, a 20+ year U.S. military veteran and Bronze Star recipient, transitioned from tech roles at NCR, PEC Safety, and AT&T to game development at Crop Circle Games.

Favorite Games: MADDEN, Call of Duty, NBA 2k

Skye grew up playing in virtual sandboxes like ZZT, SimCity 2000, and Morrowind. She entered the game industry hoping to spread the same wonder, awe, and creativity she had found in digital worlds as a kid. With that goal in mind, Skye has spent her career writing code for games and game engines at studios like 5th Cell Media, Undead Labs, and Stray Bombay. She especially enjoys crafting sublime player experiences- whether that be through a particularly satisfying procedural animation, perfecting a dynamic audio effect, optimizing a buttery smooth framerate, or (preferably) all of the above.

Favorite games: Dwarf Fortress, Stellaris, Elder Scrolls series, Phasmophobia, Sunless Sea

After a brief stint as an archaeologist, Alex traded in his trowel and fedora for a devkit and pair of headphones. During his twenty-plus year career in the game industry, he’s held a variety of design roles and contributed to games of all genres: dancing games, platformers, puzzle games, open-world adventures, and a few shooters for good measure. During his time at Ubisoft, he worked on major franchises such as Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs. As CCG’s Principal Gameplay Designer, Alex’s mission is to create amazing moment-to-moment player experiences. In his free time, Alex is an aspiring pro-angler and is always looking for a hockey team to recruit a player with great bench warming skills.

Favorite Games: The Legend of Zelda series, Uncharted series, Rocket League

Vanessa likes to get lost in other worlds, whether it's reading science fiction and fantasy, playing games with great narratives and immersion, or taking a walk in the woods. She got her start at BioWare, contributing to the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises, before taking an extended break to travel the world and work outside of game development. Vanessa returned to the industry as a programmer in 2019, when she joined WB Games Montreal. There, she was responsible for making the motorcycles go vroom in Gotham Knights and, in the process, continued to discover all the things she loves about gameplay programming.

Favorite games: Tetris, Everquest, Mass Effect series, Tyranny

An explorer who’s always looking to replicate real world magic within his game worlds, Ian brakes for the wonderment of thunderstorms, lightning bugs, sundogs, and breathtaking sunsets. He traveled the world as a Coast Guard brat, and a piece of his heart will always be found hiking glaciers and fishing in Alaska. With the Force flowing through him, Ian leapt through the doors of LucasArts as an enthusiastic design Padawan, contributing to the worlds of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Since then, he has collaborated with amazing teams to create enthralling gameplay spaces for several franchises, including Tom Clancy's The Division. Ian loves games of all types; from board games to table-top strategy, to video games and pen and paper RPGs. Drawing from a well of inspirations, Ian is always looking to guide players in experiencing something memorable and magical.

Favorite Games: Horizon Zero Dawn, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mechwarrior 2

Anthony has always been drawn to a challenge. He started playing games at age three, and has fond memories of playing Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link with his dad. As an adult, this desire for challenge propelled him to show up to PAX one year, with an ambitious adventure game in hand that could be played only through sound. He had designed it for low vision and blind players after growing up alongside his aunt who had been blind since birth. It seemed like a tough sell, but luck was on his side. His game received funding after he boldly approached Double Fine’s Tim Schafer, who then tweeted about the game to a large audience. Anthony later continued on to other head-turning opportunities, in and out of games: he built games for the world’s largest dome MSG Sphere (a venue in Las Vegas), he became an art producer for Major League Baseball’s video games department, and at one point was printing and producing t-shirts for superstars like The Grateful Dead, KISS, and Pink Floyd during a stint at a merchandise company.

Favorite Games: DOTA 2, Banjo Kazookie: Nuts and Bolts, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Josh’s path into video games got an auspicious start when – unable to get a sitter – his parents brought him along to a questionable bar, sat him in front of a Space Invaders cabinet, and gave him a handful of quarters. Annoyed he couldn’t play Space Invaders at home, Josh taught himself Apple II programming, channeling his love of writing and the Choose Your Own Adventure books into making text adventures and role-playing games. His passion for game narrative transmogrified into a full-time job during his 21-year tenure at Naughty Dog, where his story contributions on the first two Uncharted games led to co-writing and narrative design roles on Uncharted 4, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and The Last of Us: Part II. In his spare time Josh enjoys hanging out with his family, evangelizing his favorite games to anyone who’ll listen, baking, reading, travel, and wishing he had more spare time.

Favorite games: The Ultima series, The Secret of Monkey Island, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Rez, Ico, Journey, Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, Hollow Kni— hey I'm not done don't take my keybo

Ocala brings over two decades of creative force as a game artist and project leader. She started out as an inbetweener in the 2D animation industry, but since then she has primarily worked as a game industry concept artist. Her concept art has given life to characters, creatures, and environments at several companies including Cyan Worlds, Cryptic Studios, and Undead Labs. As a Product Director at Undead Labs, she worked to align cross discipline teams on the State of Decay series.

Favorite Games: Earthbound, Stardew Valley, Minecraft

Games and code have always been Braeden's constants and variables. As a kid, he could be found blowing dust out of NES cartridges or entering magazine type-in programs on a Commodore 128. His claims to teenage fame include a pair of Twin Galaxies world records for Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 and having his envelope art featured in Nintendo Power. He was easily distracted in class coding a multiplayer game or fractal renderer on a TI-85 calculator. He competed in clan tournaments on dial-up, modded Quake, and hosted LAN parties for foreign internet strangers – which for some reason mom and dad were totally cool with. Braeden worked for 15 years at ArenaNet, where he was the Lead Gameplay Engineer for Guild Wars 2. His passion for animation and responsive gameplay led him to Epic Games to head up engineering for motion matching in Unreal Engine 5.

Favorite Games: Hades, Overwatch, Borderlands 3, Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Katie first sought a career in animation, but soon realized the skills she learnt were also applicable to game development. She eventually made the switch to kickstart a career in character rigging, eager to make animations and character expressions look as accurate as possible on screen. Rigging appealed to Katie due to its unique blend of art and technical work, offering her the freedom to work across different departments and disciplines in games studios. She loves how she can easily bounce between working with character artists and animators, as well as gameplay and design teams. Crop Circle Games is the latest studio after a storied career at studios like Iron Galaxy, where she worked on Rumbleverse, and Deck Nine Games, where she helped bring games like Life is Strange: True Colors to life. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting and taking care of her two guinea pigs, Mima and Rosa.

Favorite Games: Persona 4, Final Fantasy XIV, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

During his nearly 30 years of experience in the game industry, Jeff has helped create and influence some of the biggest online games to date. While working as a programmer on StarCraft and Diablo, Jeff created the StarCraft campaign editor. He headed up initial development on World of Warcraft and would later serve as Lead Programmer and Team Lead. Next, Jeff cofounded ArenaNet, where he worked as a programmer and the Executive Producer on the Guild Wars franchise. After NCSOFT acquired ArenaNet, Strain would go on to become President of Product Development for the company’s North American and European operations. Returning to his development roots, Jeff established Undead Labs to create the definitive zombie survival-fantasy game. State of Decay launched to critical and popular acclaim, and was followed by State of Decay 2, which has been played by more than ten million people around the world.

Favorite Games: Final Fantasy Tactics, X-COM: UFO Defense, Red Dead Redemption

Growing up, Hannah was an avid MMO player and spent far too much time PvPing and raiding The Underworld in Guild Wars. During a final year school trip to tour a university, she happened upon a handwritten sign on campus that read, “come and learn about studying games!” Being a game-obsessed teenager who only wanted to be playing on her PC, she immediately snuck away from the class to check it out. Arguably, she jokes, she may have never joined the games industry if it wasn’t for this specific moment. Hannah has since built a successful career as a video game artist, working with environments and 3D models at different studios like Coatsink and Ubisoft Reflections, as well as freelancing for various companies. She also occasionally mentors and produces educational content and videos for 3D software and pipelines. She’s thankful to be at Crop Circle Games today, working on a game she’s excited about that plays well into her own personal interests. In her free time, you can find Hannah doing aerial sports, yoga, gardening, or taking her pug Sprout for walks across the coast near her countryside town in Newcastle, UK.

Favorite Games: Golden Sun, Guild Wars

A vivid storyteller, Doug has been imagining the fantastically weird since he could pick up a crayon (no, really, we’ve seen the pictures). His inspirations are almost too numerous to list, but include Ultraman, Twin Peaks, War of the Worlds and Nausicaä; just to name a few. He’s been combining his eye for cinematic narrative with his passion for video games for over 20 years. Since starting out as a starry-eyed concept artist at Humongous Entertainment, he’s since gone on to help establish the look and tone of notable game projects such as Voodoo Vince, the Guild Wars franchise, and the State of Decay franchise. Doug has also contributed visual concepts to an array of television and film projects, collaborating with similarly unconventional talents such as Guillermo del Toro and Neill Blomkamp.

Favorite Games: Actraiser, The Legend of Zelda: BOTW, the Ace Combat series, Silent Hill 2