Who We Are

I am constantly learning new ways to improve. I’m also that guy in the office who won’t stop talking about using Lean Startup principles to discover what our players want. When I’m not at Hyper Hippo I’m either hiking, trying to wear out my 2 kids or helping entrepreneurs. I believe in giving before you get.

I love working with people and helping to foster the impact of great teams. In my spare time you’ll find me playing badminton or taking my motorcycle out for a spin through the city outskirts. My goal is to create a product that can have a long lasting profound impact on as many people as possible.

Bugger if I know? Been a programmer for most of my life, and wanting to make games even longer. Got into the industry and have enjoyed my time here greatly. Outside of work I do far too many things but in particular I love cooking, traveling, and table top gaming.

I am a grumpy programmer with a passion for tech and producing quality code. When I’m not reading up on development techniques I’m usually playing some form of board or video game. Get off my lawn.

I started making video games as a hobby in highschool on my TI-83 Plus but didn’t consider shifting this pastime into an occupation until the final year of my Engineering degree. I started this exciting career as an indie doing contract work and self-publishing my first mobile game. I am now rounding out my 5th year calling Hyper Hippo home and can’t wait to see what’s next for our talented team. I value bringing joy to others through my life and work and hope to continue working my dream job for many years to come.

Like programming visual things, specifically stuff related to rendering and shaders. I love eating and sleeping. Always thinking about what I could do to be more like Kevin.

Hi! I’m Mike and I like to party! When I’m not coding you can catch me on the dance floor shaking my booty like it ain’t no thang!

How can I help? That’s my motto! I see my role as being a conveyer belt for information, a tool giver, an enabler (the good kind). Beside that, I design games. I like every aspect of it, from the pitch to the balancing. I would be sad to specialize. I’m also a project guy: always have half-a-dozen in the oven at the same time: a podcast, an online course, a board game, a novel, a new recipe or making you frown by making a bad pun!

I graduated from the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts in 2001 and have since worked in the animation, film, and games industries. My specialties lie in concept design and painting, character and creature design, KEY art creation and illustration. I do 3d sculpting, lighting and animation as well.

New challenges and surprises are a given in the QA realm, so even after almost 10 years I am still discovering new and exciting ways to break things. The constant variety keeps my job interesting, and I love problem-solving with my team. When I am not breaking stuff, you may find me playing video games, spending time with friends and family, cuddling my pet bunnies, flipping around on an aerial hoop, and/or enjoying a glass of red wine.

I was raised on video games and have been lucky enough to work in the industry now for over 6 years. I started UX/UI design professionally working in Web and Mobile before getting an opportunity to work in the AAA console space with Activision on the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises. In 2015 I had an opportunity to move from LA back to my hometown of Kelowna to begin my career in Mobile Free-To-Play and haven’t looked back since.

I am driven to seek out and solve problems, I am at my best when things are at their worst. I believe putting yourself into situations you are uncomfortable with is the only way to grow both personally and professionally. When I am not working you will probably find me in the kitchen trying out some new recipe or playing one of any number of games.

I belong to the 3% of people with the Myers-Briggs personality type INTP. As such, I tend to enjoy technical and intellectually-stimulating work, and often second guess myself. The field of mobile game analytics gives me many opportunities to dig deeper into complex data, tackle challenging problems, ask questions, and improve the world by helping create better games. Clarity, accuracy and precision are the main criteria I use to measure the results of my work. I admire openness and honesty in people and always enjoy learning new ideas.

I’ve been oriented into mobile and social games since my debut as a game designer. I like to create complex systems and balance them while constantly putting myself in the player’s perspective to validate the fun and understanding. At home, I pass a great deal of time studying computer programming to build up my own game prototypes. If you look for me in my free time, I’ll probably be either hiking a mountain or in a billiard hall participating in an amateur tournament.