Keep warm, stay fearless, play around

JOSH HOLMES

PRODUCTION & DESIGN

Josh is driven by a lifelong obsession with player narrative, expressed through complex game systems. Before co-founding Midwinter, Josh was Studio Head, Executive Producer and Creative Director for the Halo franchise. Earlier in his career, Josh was the co-founder of Propaganda Games in Vancouver and co-creator of the NBA Street and Def Jam franchises for EA.

In his former life, Josh was a washed-up child actor.

FREDRIK PERSSON

ENGINEERING

Fidde doesn't know how to use any social media apps, and his wife posts for him on his Facebook page. Loves bourbon, snowboarding and programming problems. He fancies himself as kind of a cool guy, but he really is quite nerdy.

In his spare time Fidde gorges himself on Kalles Kaviar while playing a mediocre brand of poker.

PETER BURZYNSKI

ENGINEERING

Peter is driven by a desire to make games that keep players coming back for more – games where players create and share their own stories with friends. Before co-founding Midwinter, Peter was the Principal Engineer leading Multiplayer, Networking and UI on the Halo franchise. Prior to that he was a Senior Engineer for FASA Studio.

Peter grew up in the warmth and sun of the Bahamas, which makes his decision to settle down in the wet cold of the Pacific Northwest puzzling.

DARYL ANSELMO

ART & UX

Daryl is a curious tinkerer, whose love of art and animation is inspired by the demo scene and classic games of the 80's and 90's. Before co-founding Midwinter, Daryl was the Art & Creative Director for Farmville 2, a Narrative Director at Visceral, the co-founder of Propaganda Games and co-creator of the NBA Street and Def Jam franchises.

An avid cyclist and obstacle racer, he also has an unhealthy relationship with Pop Tarts.

RISA TANEDA

ART

Risa has always held a deep love for characters, animals and the human form. She has been building characters in games for over 15 years including the Battlefield franchise at DICE in Sweden, the Mercenaries franchise at Pandemic Studios in LA and most recently, as the Lead Character Artist and Art Manager for Valkyrie Entertainment here in Seattle.

Risa’s family originally hails from Japan, where her great grandfather was a Samurai working for Hosokawa, Lord of Kumamoto.

JIMMY NILSSON

ENGINEERING

A dedicated and passionate gamer, Jimmy is obsessed with building game mechanics that feel great and create fun for players. Before joining Midwinter, Jimmy was a Senior Gameplay and Physics Engineer on the Battlefield and Battlefront franchises. While at DICE, he was also a part of the team working on the Frostbite engine. Earlier in his career, he spent many years making open world and racing games at a variety of different studios.

His proudest moment was at Pandemic Studios, where his last name was given to one of the characters in Mercenaries.

JOSHUA COLINDRES

TECHNICAL ART

One part artist, one part tinkerer, Joshua is driven by his passion for the art of animation and expression. Prior to joining Midwinter, Joshua began his career as a lead technical artist for the visual effects studio Hive-Fx, creating realistic creature rigs, and developing/maintaining pipeline tools. Joshua has also been working as a freelance/contract artist for various gaming studios including Liquid Development and Oculus.

In his leisure time "Other Josh" enjoys plein air painting and eating cheese.

ANGEL VILLEDA

FINANCE & OPERATIONS

Angel has a passion for figuring out what makes a business tick and a life-long love for gaming. Before Midwinter, he led the Business team at 343 industries, where he oversaw the financial and business operations, delved into the mystical arts of strategic planning, and partnered on the design of monetization systems. Before 343, he held several finance roles at Microsoft.

As a Mexico City native, he’s in a never-ending quest for a great taco in Seattle (no luck so far…) but has found a passion for great coffee (French Press FTW!)

JUSTIN LIPPERT

DESIGN

A lifelong gamer, Justin is passionate about creating fun and driving user engagement. Before Midwinter Justin was briefly a Designer at Respawn Entertainment after a long tenure at 343 Industries working on Halo.

When Justin isn't working he can be most often found chasing after his toddler and golden retriever as they cause all sorts of mischief. Otherwise he is usually in front of some sort of screen playing games.

CLINTON CRUMPLER

ART

Most recently, Clinton was a Senior Look Development Artist at the Coalition working on the Gears of War Franchise. Previously, he worked with Bethesda, Kixeye, and various other studios as an environment artist, and also teaches classes on CGMA on modularity for games.

Vices that always get him excited include Visual Storytelling, Pomeranians, Time Travel and Post Apocalyptic Settings. He hides a picture of Abraham Lincoln is almost everything he makes, see if you can find them :P

DANIEL ALEXANDER

ANIMATION

Since having been introduced to his father’s old Intellivision & Commodore 64 as a small child, Daniel has been a life-long gamer. Later, in his teens, after discovering a passion for animation, he set off to pursue the path of incorporating the two together. He is driven to go beyond his passion for creating and developing games, by infusing life into them through his love and fascination for movement, body mechanics and strong, interesting character performances. Before Midwinter Daniel had the pleasure to be a part of many freelance, indie projects, and most recently, WBgames and Lead Animator for HardsuitLabs.

Daniel’s blood is 3/4 coffee and enjoys spending his free time hitting the city in search for new favorite restaurants and breweries.

REECE MILLS

ANIMATION

Reece is a 3D artist and technical animator, joining Midwinter after fourteen years in the Canadian games industry, where he had the privilege of leading gameplay animation on titles like Punch-Out!!, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and Super Mario Strikers. He is really passionate about making interactions feel just right through animation and gameplay.

In his spare time, you can find Reece reluctantly renovating his house, but he would rather be pvping or drinking a really strong coffee.

DAVID TUFT

ENGINEERING

David loves channeling his enthusiasm and excitement into solving problems. Before joining Midwinter, David worked on the halo franchise doing AI, gameplay, and leading the UI Core team. Before Halo, David worked in 3rd party outreach and also 3rd party publishing helping developers with graphics and kinect. David’s pre-gaming background is in general purpose GPU programming. Prior to being a grown-up, he was the 4th grade running long jump champion of Burley, Idaho.

David’s great passion is in teaching his kids to appreciate the roots of the great games and mold them into talented engineers!

DANIEL WIKSTEN

DESIGN

Wix grew up in the north part of Sweden where his passion for games was sparked by board games and pen and paper RPGs at an early age. Career paths considered growing up: Scientist, Rockstar or Game developer. Turns out he was more talented at game development than the other things combined. He has worked in Sweden and the US where he did gameplay design on Halo, Battlefield, Medal of Honor and Star Wars games.

Wix often gets told he looks like a mix between a Viking and Jesus, and footage of his eye was used in an E3 video to promote the “highest quality pixels.” Dreamy.

KYLE LARSON

ENGINEERING

When he's not perfecting his stand-up routine, Kyle is hard at work learning new technology. As a recent Game Design & Development graduate from RIT, Kyle has worked at various companies, including an internship at 343 Industries, before finding his home at Midwinter. From New York City to Seattle, Kyle is the resident expert at knowing which coast is the best.

You may catch Kyle at the local Improv scene, where he is sure to be in a heated discussion about the latest episode of The Bachelor.

AUDREY MLADINA

PRODUCTION

Audrey loves learning what makes a person tick and how their life experiences and culture shape their world. Before Midwinter, she was in college studying production and game design with a focus on level design and UI/UX. She grew up playing games with her older brother and found her interest in game design in the Halo Forge.

In her spare time, Audrey likes to read, garden, and collect things with flowers/fruit/plants on them. She also lived in a castle keep for a short period in her life, though she was more of a maid than a princess while there.

DANIEL MOONEY

ENGINEERING

Daniel enjoys the visual side of computing, namely real-time and non real-time computer graphics. Prior to joining Midwinter, he was on the D3D driver team at ATI, Lead Rendering Engineer at Pandemic Studios, and most recently founder of semantic data company Moomat.

Daniel lives in Tulsa and is involved with a number of non-profits. He uses his free time to further his STEM initiative "Coding Club", which teaches elementary-aged children in the Tulsa area how to make video games. When he's not working on Coding Club, he spends as much time as possible in Venice, California.

JESSICA HELGESSON

ART

Jessica’s love for games was cemented after finishing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 back in 1998. This made things very easy when it came to choose a profession later in life and that eventually led to a job at DICE in Stockholm. During her years at DICE she has spent quite some time with titles such as Mirrors Edge, Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront.

Apart from everything related to the game gig she sees punching and kicking as an excellent form of exercise and spent over 10 years running a Kung Fu club in Sweden.

DAVID FELSTEAD

ENGINEERING

David is an avid learner and is driven by an (occasionally unhealthy) need to understand how, and more importantly, why things work. Before Midwinter he spent time bouncing through various iterations of consulting, engineering and management before eventually finding his passion in game development as the analytics and data engineering lead at 343 Industries.

In his spare time you'll find him obsessing over where to find Seattle's best sandwiches and ramen, and trying to balance that with how many extra Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes to take to burn off those extra calories.

MARK LININGTON

ART

Originally from Montreal, Canada, Mark is inspired by games that provoke emotion, deep storytelling and unique visual style. He has been in games for 20 years, working at Ubisoft on the Far Cry and Prince of Persia series and serving as Lead Environment Artist on the Mass Effect Franchise. Recently, Mark has been Lead Map Artist on Halo 5 and Lead Environment Artist at Amazon Game Studios.

In his spare time, Mark produces Electronic Dance Music, DJ's at night clubs and performing at events as NEON PUMA.

TJ PERILLO

DESIGN

TJ has nearly 20 years of experience as a video game designer. His focus is on the subtle forces that shape human behavior, an obsession that also fuels his interests in politics, policy, history, the mysteries of the human story, and hosting parties. Most recently TJ spent 7 years on the Halo franchise and is overjoyed to work alongside so many of his favorite people once again at Midwinter.

TJ enjoys travelling with his wife and their 2 boys, cooking meat, scribbling notes, and making people laugh.

WADE MULHERN

ART

Wade has been in the industry for 18 years and is passionate about making great games. He started in Austin, TX on his first game Freelancer and continued in his career to work on games like God of War and Halo.

In his free time he enjoys various combinations of: reading, playing video games, exercising, cooking, watching movies, home improvement and spending time with his family.

CHRIS FRENCH

DESIGN

Chris has been in the video game industry for 16+ years and is inspired by games that offer a robust sandbox that allow players to experiment, play how they want, and create memorable moments. Previously Chris worked at 343 industries, Propaganda, Pandemic Studios, InXile, Black Isle Studios, and Rockstar San Diego.

If given the opportunity, in any game, Chris will always choose to be an Orc or the Orc faction. When not playing an Orc, Chris likes to hike, play music, paint miniatures and drink coffee.

JEREMY MCCARTY

UI

Jeremy is passionate about creating engaging experiences with amazing teams, learning and developing new technology, and creating wonderful games. Originally from Denver, Colorado, he moved to the Pacific Northwest to pursue a career in game development and recently graduated from DigiPen Institute of Technology with a focus on technical game design. His love for gaming started as a child with a chunky Macintosh computer and his Grandma’s NES and he has been playing games ever since.

When he isn’t making games, Jeremy enjoys playing and running D&D games with his wife and friends, hanging out with his two pugs, reading comic books, and nerding out over all things Star Wars.

MARIO COLINDRES

ART

Mario has always had a passion for art and any challenges that would push him to become better artist. He's inspired by the process of creating believable characters, learning and developing new methods to produce high quality art. Prior to joining Midwinter, Mario was a Character Artist / Hard-Surface Artist for over six years at Liquid Development, an outsourcing studio in Portland, Oregon. It's here where he was exposed to a variety art styles and pipelines from a variety of clients and video game projects, ranging from small mobile games to high-end AAA video games. This cemented his love for video game art and the process behind creating video games.

In his spare time, Mario likes to go kickboxing, indoor rock-climbing, and salsa dancing. He also enjoys going out to catch latest Marvel movie with friends, have a laugh at the local comedy clubs, and recently in the process of learning how to make music.

CARLOS RODELA

COMMUNITY

Carlos really enjoys connecting wtih people, and developing communities.

He is a podcaster, comedian, video producer, musician, and indie game dev. He doesn't sleep much.

Carlos is also obsessed with playing every game that comes out, and is officially addicted to mochas.

JOE SOLA

ENGINEERING

Joe has been playing and creating games for most of his life, and lives to make high quality games that feel as good as they look. As a gameplay programmer, he's worked on a variety of titles across multiple genres, from the bloody slasher horror in The Suffering to the adorable back yard battles in Plants vs. Zombies 2.

In his free time, Joe can be found perfecting his Chicago-style thin crust pizza recipe and practicing his combos in fighting games. Dorya!

ARIN DOMNING

ENGINEERING

Arin sure does love video games; when she's not at working games, you'll likely find her playing games. She likes to learn how cool things work, make them cooler, and help her team craft the coolest experiences. Having moved from Minnesota to Washington to pursue her passion for game development, she has recently graduated with a Computer Science degree from DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Outside of video games she loves playing D&D with friends, listening to paranormal podcasts, and baking delicious treats.

MATTHEW OAKES

ENGINEERING

Matt is inspired by incredible visuals and technology in games. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Matt aspires to create games that inspire players as much as the games he grew up playing. He is a recent graduate from DigiPen Institute of Technology with a focus in graphics engineering, and was an intern at NVIDIA Research before joining Midwinter.

When he is not drawing triangles, Matt often enjoys exploring the culinary arts.

EVAN KAU

ENGINEERING

Evan is a tools and graphics programmer, greatly enjoys helping others with their problems, and loves creating things for the sake of doing so. Native to the Seattle area, he was led to DigiPen Institute of Technology, wound up in ArenaNet as a Technical Artist Intern, and now resides here at Midwinter.

He has exceptional tolerance for the cold, wearing t-shirts in weather that others need coats and jackets for. He also owes Audrey a lot of money, due to the quantity of puns and dad jokes he's made. (And will likely rack up significantly more debt in the near future.)

GARRETT O'MALLEY

ENGINEERING

Garrett is drawn to the worlds of movies, books, and games and suffers from obsessive curiosity about all things. Before Midwinter, he spent time at ArenaNet and 343 as a graphics engineer, and before that he did “real world” physics (you know, with lasers).

Besides games, Garrett is often found playing guitar or venturing deep into remote parts of the woods with only the essentials strapped to his back.

CHASE RAYMENT

ENGINEERING

Hailing from rural Colorado, Chase got his start in game dev making maps for Portal 2. Inspired by the lighting provided by the Source Engine as well as visuals and audio in games such as Kentucky Route Zero and Thumper, Chase specialized in graphics and audio programming during his time at DigiPen Institute of Technology.

When not at work, Chase keeps himself busy working on his thesis on dynamic audio reverberation using real-time GPU raytracing. When not working, he plays guitar/bass, makes music, fences, and gets into D&D more than is entirely healthy.

MARY OLSON

PRODUCTION

Mary began her career many years ago as a Sound Designer, which became her gateway into a lifelong passion for making games. She’s held many other grown up jobs since - running her own Audio production company working on Sports, Racing, Sims, and Shooters, as an Audio Director for Sony, and Audio Producer, Lead Producer, and Executive Producer for the Halo Franchise.

Mary has 2 grown kids who make her a better person. When not making games, Mary can be found on a mountain, playing music, or trying to expand her world view.

JONATHAN SCHWARTZ

UI

Jonathan fell into the video game industry after moving out west from Montreal and Toronto. Turns out the things he’s most passionate about — graphic design, branding, interaction design, usability and entertainment —make game UI development a perfect fit for his OCD tendencies. Over the past 16+ years he’s been lucky enough to call Electronic Arts Canada, Propaganda Games, 343 Industries — and now Midwinter — home

Jonathan has been known to frequent the local cinemas, enjoys photography, plays video games and likes to spend time with his newly expanding family. bonus facts: he has a predilection for fast food, doesn’t care for mint chocolate chip ice cream and thinks arrested development is the best tv show ever made (and if you’ve never watched it he suggests you really oughta give it a shot)

JAMES HILL

VFX

James loves art, tech and a good challenge. So naturally visual effects has provided a great avenue to experiment with. Before joining Midwinter James most recently worked on Halo Infinite, and previously was fortunate to work with Capcom, Square Enix, Sony, and Oculus as well as several indie projects over the years.

In his spare time, James is a tinkerer, from house repairs, to collecting vintage camera lens, to speaker building, to building the tallest LEGO towers with his kids, if theres something to build or take apart James probably has an interest in it.

ERIC EDGEMAN

REVENUE ANALYSIS

Eric has a passion for finance and analytics and enjoys bringing his love of numbers to the game development process. Prior to joining Midwinter, Eric was at Electronic Arts where he provided finance support to numerous studios across North America. After working with so many great development teams, Eric cannot imagine a better industry to work in.

When not at the office, Eric enjoys creating machine learning algorithms, working on classic cars, and taking in everything that the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

AMANDA HUDSON

OPERATIONS

Amanda is passionate about storytelling and shared adventures. She finds inspiration in the stunning environmental and cultural diversity of the world around her. In a past life, Amanda worked as a lawyer but then the travel bug bit and she found herself in Sweden working in video games as a lore master.

In her spare time, Amanda is either at the rock-climbing gym lifting weights (yeah, counter-intuitive) or somewhere in the world reading or writing a book.

MATT HEINIGER

TECHNICAL ART

Matt is a professional provider of unconventional solutions. He has a knack for improving art pipelines, either through de-tangling complicated processes or finding new ways of doing things. Lately he has been focusing this talent on lighting and materials. Throughout his career, Matt has worked on a number of open world games including This Is Vegas, various Warner Brothers IPs, and most recently the State of Decay franchise.

When not busy developing video games or raising two little gamers, Matt fills his time with claymation, photography, and hikes throughout the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

BEN BATSTONE

DESIGN

Ben is fascinated with what it means to play and how we grow and learn through it. Like most people, he started designing games collaboratively on the playground as a child, but wasn't paid to do it until he was old enough to put childish things behind him (spoiler, he never did). He's built big budget Marvel games as well as tiny documentary games with lots of interesting stuff in between. He once got away with building a set of levels inspired by South American revolutionaries for a match-3 game.

When he's not making or playing games, you can find him digging holes in the earth in an attempt to grow a decent garden. This year's goal: kohlrabi!

MATT CHURCH

ENGINEERING

Avid player and maker. I've worked on a gauntlet of games from bleeding edge sports titles, to epic science fantasy roleplaying, to somber and empathic indies. I'm the proud father of two cat children with an appreciation for sports, fitness, and balance.

DANIEL HAMILTON

ENGINEERING

From a young age, Daniel has always loved to take things apart and figure out how they work. Daniel started his career inventing and engineering at Intellectual Ventures Laboratory with a focus on photography, but that was a stepping stone towards working on games, where he continues to take things apart and put them back together at Midwinter.

Outside of work, he spreads his hobbies wide: from baking to banjo to backpacking, from gardening to rock climbing, from skiing to occasionally even relaxing and playing the games he works tirelessly to make.

LUKE KOPEC

DESIGN

Luke drove across the country to chase his dream of working in games. As a kid, multiplayer FPS games like Halo brought him out of his shell. After starting as a QA at Microsoft, he was eventually able to contribute to the development of Halo: Infinite at 343. Now at Midwinter, he hopes to build experiences that inspire the next generation of gamers!

A big fan of Japanese language, culture, and cuisine, Luke frequently travels there to visit his in-laws and gorge himself. ルークは大学生の時に埼玉大学で一年間留学しました。