Brayden William Blaine Olson | Founder / CEO
Novel was elected by the City of Bellevue as one of the Top 3 Emerging Businesses in the Region and Brayden as the Young Professional of the Year for 2011. In 2011, he was also the youngest member ever admitted to the Seattle chapter of Entrepreneur’s Organization, and was the judges’ pick at Fortune Magazine’s Startup Idol competition. Brayden built Novel from a one man idea to a venture backed company with a now seasoned team coming from every major game development studio in the industry.
In 2010, Brayden was selected by Entrepreneur’s Organization, the largest network of entrepreneurs in the world, as the top student entrepreneur for the west coast. Local startup news site Xconomy said, “The buzz around (Brayden) is that he might well be Seattle’s next Bill Gates or Howard Schultz,” given the importance of the work being done to merge the potential of videogames with the real world. This work was ranked by the Huffington Post ranked as one of the Top 30 most underrated innovations of 2010 between the Ipad and Gmail.
Brayden is also a chair for the Young Entrepreneur Social a non-profit in Seattle dedicated to building a better future for local entrepreneurs giving them the guidance, network and resources they need at no cost. In partnership with other YES members, Brayden is also volunteering with local high schools to get the word out to kids between the ages of 16-18 that entrepreneur is a real option to consider along side starting college if an individual wants to succeed early in life.
Mike Marr | Founder / Studio Head
Mike has over ten years professional experience in the gaming industry and has shipped eight multi-million dollar projects including three 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.
He is credited on titles as an Engineer, Designer and Producer and is a true game development generalist, allowing him to work with and facilitate all aspects of game development.
Mike’s titles shipped span a wide spectrum of games including strategy and roleplaying games, such as Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander and Dungeon Siege, as well as MMO games such as Electronic Art’s The Sims Online, Earth & Beyond and Motor City Online.
Elizabeth Walkey | Senior Producer
From the original Game Boy to present day, Elizabeth remembers the days of game development when she could program, animate, write, test, and produce on a single game. She’s come a long way since that time credited in over 25 games over the past 17 years from hand-held to the latest console platforms.
Thankfully she no longer programs or animates, (though if it were required she would give it her best shot). Most of her experience is with producing high-profile licensed products such as Harry Potter and The Sims, in genres ranging from sports to action adventure and simulations.
She excited to be involved with games that push the envelope and bring games to industries and media just beginning to realize video games’ potential.
Gordon Ludlow | Technical Director
A professional video game programmer since 1994, Gordon Ludlow has contributed to over 20 shipped video games, serving as lead programmer on more than a dozen. In 1997, Gordon received the Electronic Arts Canada Award of Excellence in recognition of his work on the Need for Speed franchise. Gordon was promoted from Lead Programmer to Technical Manager at Griptonite Games in 2009 and joined Novel Inc as Technical Director in 2011.
Gordon’s experience is broad, his games ranging from budget to triple A titles on diverse platforms including browser based, Windows, XBox, XBox 360, Gamecube, Wii, 3DS, Playstation, PS2, PS3, PSP and SEGA Saturn.