Dan Hon, Co-founder and CEO
Dan has been at the forefront of alternate reality gaming since its inception in 2001, when he co-moderated the groundbreaking online community Cloudmakers, formed to play The Beast, Microsoft’s production for AI. One of the UK’s first bloggers, Dan’s interests range from gaming to storytelling to cross media entertainment.
Before becoming Chief Operating Officer at Mind Candy, Dan qualified as a technology/intellectual property lawyer at boutique firm Hewitsons, and worked with Elan lee at Microsoft Games Studios to develop an internal successor to The Beast, the first alternate reality game.
Dan has spoken extensively on both social software and cross media gaming, and was recently a jury member for the BAFTA Videogames Awards. Dan has most recently spoken at South by Southwest 2008, South by Southwest 2007, the London Games Festival, Digital Communities 2006 and BBC New Media Central’s Digital Futures.
Read more about Dan at his blog.
Adrian Hon, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer
Adrian is one of the world’s leading alternate reality game designers, having been influential in the genre since its birth. Previously, Adrian was Director of Play at Mind Candy, where he designed and produced Perplex City, the world’s first commercially successful ARG. Some of the venues at which Adrian has spoken include TED, Google, GDC, Nordic Game and the Montreal Games Summit.
Adrian previously studied neuroscience at Oxford University and Cambridge University, and is the founder of the innovative Let’s Change the Game competition to produce an ARG to raise funds for charity.
Read more about Adrian at his blog.
James Wallis, Game Designer
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.
Kass Schmitt, Technical Project Manager
Kass Schmitt joined Six to Start in February 2008 after nearly five years 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.
Lindy Taylor, Head of Production
Lindy joined Six to Start in April, after having spent the last 7 years working in British television production, most recently as a Head of Production for a busy tv indie. Prior to this, Lindy spent several years working in the Australian film industry, where she started out working in the cutting room before moving onto casting, coordinating and moving entire film crews across the outback.
Lindy jumped at the chance to join Six to Start and the world of ARGs for the opportunity it opens to combine her practical production skills in budgeting, scheduling and negotiating with the more creative skills in working with writers on script development and storytelling.
In her free time when not reading, writing or watching movies, Lindy likes to belt out the big power ballads down in Soho’s karaoke bars as well as travel the world in search of new additions for her extensive snow-globe collection.