six to start

Adrian Hon is one of the world’s leading alternate reality game designers and the Chief Creative Officer at Six to Start. Previously, Adrian was Director of Play at Mind Candy, where he designed and produced Perplex City, the world’s first commercially successful ARG. Adrian is also the founder of the innovative Let’s Change the Game competition, set up in collaboration with Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest independent cancer research charity.

Before becoming a games designer, Adrian studied neuroscience at Cambridge University and Oxford University, spent two weeks in a Mars simulation habitat in the Utah desert, and created a NASA award-winning Astrobiology educational website. Adrian also writes a weblog at mssv.net, and favours the Pyro when it comes to Team Fortress 2.

Mink ette joined Six to Start in January as Production Assistant or Assistant Producer depending on who she is talking to. Before this she had several interesting escapades, some of which involved making ARGs with the mysterious Coney, being a scenographer and ‘Mask Mistress’ for Punchdrunk and invading the London Underground with her site-specific live-action radio-play.

In her spare time she attempts to design street games and helps organise the Hide and Seek Pervasive Games Festival.

Mink may or may not be fictional.

Here’s James, one of our game designers:

James Wallis jumped at the chance to join Six to Start, since ARGs are one of the few areas of games design, or for that matter media, he’s not worked in yet. James is the former founder and director of Hogshead Publishing, where among other things he set up the journal of game design and criticism Interactive Fantasy, and won an Origins Award for his work on Nobilis. He’s been a TV presenter, managing editor of Bizarre magazine, a Sunday Times journalist, a movie publicist, and has written thirteen books. His card-game Once Upon a Time (Atlas/Trident, 1995) has sold a quarter of a million copies, and his rather silly RPG The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen has been published by MIT Press. Yes, that MIT Press.

At Six to Start he designs games, keeps a Sauron-like eye on product quality, holds the office high-score for Rez, and doesn’t update his blog (www.spaaace.com/cope) on company time.

Ben Burry joined Six to Start in December of 2007 as a Senior Developer after fueling his interest in gaming and interactive narratives at Mind Candy. He spends a good deal of his time elbows-deep in code, explaining why it would be nice just once to not push the boundaries of what’s possible and discussing technical issues with Moishe.

We celebrated Kass’s birthday this week, but we haven’t really properly introduced her to anyone yet. Here she is:

Kass Schmitt joined Six to Start in February 2008 after nearly fiveyears at the BBC doing things like nursing Celebdaq, engineering elusive pop sensation Jamie Kane and rescuing Leeds from forecasts of 188°C at the Weather Centre. Kass is a technical project manager at Six to Start which means that she spends most of her time figuring out how to deliver amazing things on time and under budget or, when no one’s looking, reminiscing about life on the high seas. Kass can currently be found at her desk practicing knots.