MICHAEL SMITH
CEO

Michael has been fascinated by games and puzzles ever since receiving a copy of Masquerade for his seventh birthday. More recent distractions have included Poker, DS Tetris, Pro Evo 6, Test Drive Unlimited and Guitar Hero. In his early twenties he co-founded the online retailer, Firebox.com. The first product Firebox designed was The Shot Glass Chess Set, an unusual fusion of chess and alcohol. The bizarre game became an instant best-seller and fueled the rapid growth of the company. Firebox recently featured in 13th place on the Sunday Times Fast Track list of fastest growing companies in Britain. Michael launched Mind Candy in 2003 and development on Perplex City began soon after.

DIVINIA KNOWLES
HEAD OF OPERATIONS AND FINANCIAL CONTROLLER

Divinia is Mind Candy's meticulously organised, Sage-accounts-wielding, FedEx-battling, credit-card-supplies-account-brandishing operations manager whipping everyone at Mind Candy into shape (the whip's a hangover from her Archaeology degree from the University of Wales at Lampeter where she had a love of digging, dinosaurs and (we assume) Indiana Jones).

If you call us up, chances are it's Divinia's dulcet tones that you'll hear on the other end of the phone. While she's a fully qualified book keeper, don't let that fool you: underneath that love of numbers and all things ledger-like, you're likely to meet up with her sooner or later if you too spend your (well scheduled) time gig-going, surfing, snowboarding, DIY-ing, cycling, running, wedding-cake-baking or puzzling.

MELISSA BLAKE
OFFICE MANAGER AND PA

Melissa was lured away from the world of travel by the promise of Jelly Beans and working in an office full of puzzles and games.

Up until the age of 9 her chosen vocation was that of a Mermaid, she briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a Pirate whilst travelling around the world until she realised pirates were hard to organise and decided that it might be easier in an office environment.

Melissa joined Mind Candy as their very own Office Manager & PA. She likes to dance and sing at people and when she's around things mysteriously break. Melissa enjoy's roller skating, playing games that involve shooting zombies or other undead beasties, watching horror movies and making crisp sandwiches.

LISA-JANE MUNNS
PR ACCOUNT MANAGER

Lisa-Jane has left behind the worlds of TV presenting, modelling and looking after Premier League footballers to join the Mind Candy team, and finds caring for her pet Moshi Monster Candyfloss infinitely easier than getting Chelsea, West Ham or Arsenal players to behave themselves.

A love of pink things, cute monsters and sugary treats lured her away to be PR Account Manager for Moshi Monsters, and when she isn't promoting quite simply the best virtual world there is, LJ can be found at the gym partaking in anything from spinning to body pump to anything else that involves "feeling the burn". Grrr.

JACK MCCALL
WEB PRODUCER

An avid gamer since he discovered the Space Invaders machine at his local corner store in Brooklyn, Jack spent his formative years basking in a pixelated glow. He has been producing new media since 1994, when he found himself face to sock with the Sesame Street Muppets, and spent the next 12 years working on a variety of interactive kids projects.

In 2006, he emigrated from NYC to London, and now may have the distinction of being the only American to actually enjoy Marmite, thus easing his transition from The Big Apple to The Big Smoke. In his alternate reality existence, he travels extensively, noodles on the guitar, dives with sharks, and occasionally undertakes ridiculously long cycle rides.

His favourite word is homunculus, and he vows never to ride an ostrich again.

ERIC HARSHBARGER
PUZZLE DESIGNER

Eric Harshbarger likes to think of puzzle design for Mind Candy/Perplex City as being very high on his "cool-things-to-do-in-life list". And, considering that past items on that list include: building sculptures out of LEGO bricks, studying to become an expert tournament Scrabble player in three years, maintaining the "authorized website" for a famous (infamous?) actress in the late 90s, and other weird endeavors such as building a scale model of the Eiffel Tower out of BBs and tiny magnets, and getting to walk on the roof of the East Wing of the White House... finding a new entry to go on the "cool list" gets harder and harder all the time.

BEN GELIHER
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Hired to meet the Government's new requirements on the amount of people named Ben employed by a company, Ben has come from a mixed background.

A degree in Film and Visual arts, stints testing PC and Mobile phone games, a brief foray into recruitment and a memorable performance as a body double in Battlestar Galactica have all perfectly prepared him for working at Mind Candy.

REBECCA NEWTON
HEAD OF COMMUNITY

Rebecca is a refugee from other online worlds and has gained official Mind Candy citizenship as Head of Community. She has been in professional Online Community Management since 1994 and in the world quite a bit longer (she's ageless).

Rebecca first recognised her calling as a community organiser at age 8, when she rewrote and produced a neighborhood version of "The Wizard of Oz" on a Sunday afternoon in New York state. This was when the world was still in black and white; well, the world of entertainment media, that is. At age 4 she performed Sophie Tucker songs for her family and as fate would have it, Rebecca has been a professional musician for "20 something" years.

She's done just about everything but jump out of an airplane, but there's still time yet!

JEY BIDDULPH
GAME DESIGNER

Jey first arrived in the employ of Mind Candy while attempting to steal the secrets of Perplex City. Unfortunately, his disguise worked too well and someone, mistaking him for a colleague with too much free time on their hands, set him to work. To this day, he vows to escape from the labyrinth that is the office but is hampered by those pesky deadlines that keep appearing.

MEGAN BELL
COMMUNITY ASSISTANT

Megan began her online community career as a virtual moderator for a virtual and magical kingdom, ensuring the safety of virtual young people; she found it so virtually rewarding that she joined Mind Candy in February of 2008. Megan earned her Bachelor's degree in Social Work from Warren Wilson College in the North Carolina Mountains.

Megan loves sock monkeys, snow globes, cappuccinos, vintage spectacles, and especially monsters.

DR CHRIS THORPE
CTO

Since he gave up playing with really big computers as a research scientist Chris has been trying to find more and more excuses to play with really big computers powering websites. Web 2.0 sounds like the perfect excuse until Web 3.0 comes along. When he's not worrying about how many of his technical team cross-dress, he's making sure that everything is place technically for our little monsters to meet your little monsters.

Chris is obsessive about bleepy music and is pleased to see that his son's new toys provide lots of sampling opportunity, although their speakers are way tinnier than he approves of. More subwoofers in Fisher Price is his current mantra. He's currently trying to find a way to legitimately buy a very small bicycle without looking like Nathan Barley.

Music Non Stop, Technopop

TOBY MOORE
TECHNICAL ARCHITECT

After spending 3 months traveling from Russia to Bali (almost) overland, Toby decided it was time to find something juicy back home in blighty to get his teeth into, and within 2 weeks moved to London to start work as a Java developer for Mind Candy.

Perhaps not a normal BSc(Hons) in Software Engineering student, Toby likes to spend his spare time surfing, snowboarding and scuba diving when the weather permits, and behind either his Digital SLR or Acoustic Guitar when it doesn't.

A big fan of puzzles, Toby is also currently learning to play the ancient Chinese game "Go", with the hope that one day will be able to provide good competition to Michael the CEO.

RYAN CONWAY
NETWORK SYSADMIN

Originally from way up north, Ryan recently graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in Computing Networks which, after a brief foray into the wonderful world of web design, is now being put to good use at Mind Candy.

A fan of all things technological, Ryan likes to spend his time playing around with new gadgets and gizmos, as well as finding time to explore an interest in photography.

However, he doesn't let his job distract him from his ultimate ambition of getting Macs ruling the world.

DR MIKE JEWELL
JAVA DEVELOPER

A dedicated follower of shiny things, Mike was lured away from his 4 years of music breeding and open archiving with the promise of as many shiny things as he could possibly handle.

When not buried in Java, Mike is often found making other things shinier, whether it be adding countless terrible puns to web-based MMORPGs, polishing his Apple collection, fine-tuning his (sometimes listenable) music creations, (overusing the word "shiny"), or just singing wherever he legally can.

MARTIN SHUTTLEWORTH
FLASH DEVELOPER

Recently voted most likely to die on his way to or from work, Martin's obsession with dodging traffic usually makes him late for work, or was it the snooze button? Either way, when he makes it to work in one piece, Martin likes to drink alllllllll the diet coke in the fridge (it's healthy).

Originally a web designer, he eventually realised he couldn't actually draw. Luckily, it turned out that he had acquired some mad actionscript skillz over the years, and said skillz could indeed pay the billz. So now he's living his nightmare - living and working in London in the middle of the Dot Com boom 2.0. - Couldn't be happier.

Outside of work Martin will probably still be tied to his computer, when he's not, he'll be dodging traffic for fun, and when he's not doing that, he'll be drinking until the world looks like a playground again. Or maybe, just maybe, he'll be asleep...

CHRIS HOYES
JAVA DEVELOPER

Graduating from Uni with a 2.1 in Computer Science, Chris spent the first eight months of his career in Paris writing software for T-Mobile, and now likes to pretend he can speak French fluently. Not your usual techie, Chris is an adrenaline junkie who likes nothing more than putting himself in dangerous situations, whether that be downhill mountain biking, snowboarding, or entering bare knuckle karate fights.

After spending 3 months travelling around South East Asia Chris decided to return to reality. Previously working at SEGA, Chris has worked on some large web projects.

Chris has a strange phobia of balloons popping near him!

JAMES REVILL
DEVELOPER

James hails from Surrey and holds a degree in Physics and Computer Science. His first job was at Ideaworks and he spent the next three years working on native/java games for mobile platforms.

Desiring a change to more user driven content and a chance to subvert a new platform, he applied for and succeeded in securing a position at Mind Candy.

James desires to bring game-development knowledge to those parts of the Company's products which would benefit from such an approach.

BEN HUGHES
SENIOR SYSADMIN

MindCandy's resident grumpy sysadmin earned his bones in the computer security, online gaming and ISP industries, before braving deepest darkest south London to work for Mind Candy.

When not politely arguing with computers he's been know to run, cycle, jump, board or more often than not, just fall around London in various ill-advised sports.

Hired in the hope of getting the whole set of Bens thus being able to put hotels on them and then charge more in Web 2.0 Monopoly.

STEVE POCKLINGTON
DESIGN MANAGER

After escaping the coal mines of the North with flat cap and degree in Interactive Media firmly in hand Steve embarked on a big adventure in the 'Big Smoke', working in the travel industry. Having started out as a Web Designer, and eventually working his way up to Creative Manager at the world's largest student travel company meeting some awesome people along the way (oh and Marty, small world), Steve finally decided to loose the travel perks and smell of sun tan lotion and trade it in for endless pots of jelly beans and a job that lets you play games at work (for research purposes of course!).

Steve's favourite activities involve drinking way too much beer while playing table football, dancing to indie music and discovering new bands, occasionally trying to learn to play drums and laughing at emos and their silly poems.

MARTY BATTEN
LEAD DESIGNER

Marty has worked his way through various new media & web design agencies in New Zealand and Australia before ending up at Mind Candy.

When not making sure every pixel lines up and cursing the developers for breaking something, Marty loves to spend time scouring the net for new music, listening to music and seeing live music. The odd deathmatch with the fellow geeks at MC never goes a miss either.

BEN PALCZYNSKI
ANIMATOR

Ben got his job at Mind Candy partly due to the fact that you're statistically more likely to get a job here if your name is either Ben or Steve. His dream job would be to animate monsters, which is a good thing too since that's what his job here is!

An avid believer of imaginary friends, he believes that they say a lot about the person that create them. His imaginary friend is called Teacosy, who is constantly nagging Ben to animate him in his own online cartoons. Which has lead to frustration on Teako's part since Ben is being kept busy at work.

Ben's cartoon characters advocate the re-use of plastic bags and are pro smoking ban. Don't worry, he recycles his characters after he's finished with them, every pixel counts ;)

TREVOR WHITE
ILLUSTRATOR

Originally from Northern Ireland Trevor left home to study Graphic Design New Media in sunny Epsom before moving to London to work freelance as an illustrator. Along the way he has had to use other skills to pay the bills, and has worked as a video editor, after effects animator, and garden gnome painter (the feral cannibalistic variety of course).

Trevor enjoys drawing all manner or wackiness, some of which is actually work related. Working as an illustrator in the games industry is something Trevor has always wanted to do and thinks its awesome Mind Candy hired him!

When not drawing Trevor is probably taking it easy reading sci-fi and comics, looking at arty type stuff, playing video games, or riding his bike.