We enrich lives by kindling the imagination, building camaraderie, and making memories that last a lifetime.
We live our values daily. We share a common passion for our work. Our shared passion leads to a sense of responsibility to ourselves, each other, and our community. Being responsible leads us to trust one another. Trust creates camaraderie through shared experiences. Through camaraderie, we grow together.
OUR TEAM
Shovaen Patel
CEO, Technical Director, Co-Founder
Shovaen is a Georgia Tech and SMU Guildhall graduate, former consultant, and an 8 year game industry veteran. Shovaen’s experience covers games at multiple scales across multiple platforms and a wide variety of work done on those games, from projectile physics to artificial intelligence to porting a server simulation to Linux to creating an internal analytics website. As a Lead Programmer Shovaen shipped many titles, including Age of Empires Online, Orcs Must Die!, and Hero Academy.
Paul Hellquist
Chief Creative Officer, Co-Founder
Paul is an 20 year game industry veteran with exemplary titles under his belt such as Lead Designer on BioShock and Creative Director on Borderlands 2. Between these two titles he has sold over 15 million copies. Paul’s passion for player stories has driven his career and is one of his primary reasons for the creation of Stray Kite Studios.
Paul Slusser
Art Director
Paul, or Sluss as we like to call him, has been playing games and working in the industry since 1999, including time at Ensemble Studios. Over his 20+ years in the industry, Sluss has worked on major titles like Age of Empires, Age of Mythology and Halo Wars.
Mausami (Patel) Shahani
Director of Operations and Production
Mausami is a graduate of Rice University in Houston and Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management in Nashville. She started her career in public accounting, then moved into strategy and operations consulting first in Texas, then London, where she also travelled extensively for projects to Edinburgh, Geneva, and Paris (yes, she misses the croissants). As a lover of video games - some of her faves are Don’t Starve, Borderlands 2, and Awesomenauts - she is passionate about leveraging her experiences to help create memorable games at Stray Kite Studios.
Tarl Raney
Senior Producer
Tarl Raney is a Senior Producer with over two decades of experience in the game industry. He has shipped numerous titles across various platform generations, including PC, mobile, and console. He has worked on AAA games such as Spec Ops: The Line and The Lamplighter's League. He has led teams of developers, designers, artists, and testers, ensuring the quality and timely delivery of those projects. Tarl is passionate about empowering developers to create immersive and engaging experiences for players, and he is always looking for new challenges and opportunities to innovate and collaborate in the game industry.
Yarin Cohen
Associate Producer
Yarin graduated from SMU’s Guildhall program where he specialized in production. Creating unforgettable and enjoyable experiences for players has always been Yarin’s passion and goal as a developer. Always up for some healthy competition, Yarin enjoys fighting games, shooters, and MOBAs.
Daniel Reynolds
Associate Producer
Daniel graduated from Abilene Christian University with a bachelor's degree in Digital Entertainment Technology. After undergrad he attended graduate school at SMU Guildhall specializing in Production. Daniel is a huge Star Wars fan and an avid player of action RPGs.
Kyle King
Art Lead
Kyle is a graduate of The Art Institute of Dallas. He was recruited while still a student and has spent 13 years working on all things animation - motion capture to hand-keyed, in-game to cinematics, and concept to completion - for many projects including the beloved Borderlands franchise. Kyle has also enjoyed for-fun projects such as DOTA marketplace content and personal work. Through his experience as a senior artist he has come to know and love the joys of working on specialized teams to produce exciting and innovative content, which is why he is thrilled to now be at Stray Kite Studios doing just that.
Dana Brooks
Environment Artist
Dana graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering, where she specialized in graphics programming. After completing her undergrad, Dana decided to pursue her dream of becoming a game artist through graduate school at SMU Guildhall. While at Guildhall, Dana studied game art creation and worked on her thesis, a simulation of time through dynamic decay, overgrowth, and flooding.
Steve Hilbert
Principal Character Artist
Steve is a graduate of The Art Institute of Dallas where he received his degree in Computer Animation and Multimedia Arts. Steve got his start in the game industry over 20 years ago, and after several years moved into working as a senior artist in film, television, commercials, and augmented reality experiences. Steve has always been extremely passionate about animation and art, so it’s only fitting to return to games at Stray Kite Studios where he’s excited to be a part of such an amazing group of talented creatives.
Kelley Harris
Principal Concept Artist
Before joining Stray Kite, Kelley has been a freelancer in the gaming and book industry since 2008. Her works can be found in Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive book series and popular card game Magic the Gathering. Kelley is mostly known for her flowing character designs and strong use of lighting to convey mood. She is currently learning 3D so that she might push her world-building abilities even further.
Alex Stachelek
Technical Art Lead
Alex is a graduate of SCAD and Parsons School of Design where he received his postgraduate degree in Design & Technology. He joins Stray Kite with over 10 years of experience in the entertainment industry as a visual effects artist and creative director for HBO and WarnerMedia. An avid lifelong video game enthusiast, Alex is excited to transition into the gaming industry and leverage his technical expertise from film & television to help create world-class visuals and creative pipeline tools at Stray Kite.
Ian Wright
VFX Artist
Ian graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's in Biology, then attended SMU Guildhall where he pursued his passion for making video games. His dream is to create stunning moments through visual effects which he hopes to achieve at Stray Kite. In his spare time he plays all sorts of games, from well-known to obscure.
Patrick Stancu
Technical Animator
Patrick is a self taught tech animator who got started selling products on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. He was reached out to and offered a job on a AAA title, which was his first job in the industry. Patrick specializes in runtime animation systems like state machines, animation logic, and procedural animation systems.
Gastón Sbodio
Technical Animator
Gastón, also known by his nickname "Gastoncho", hails from Buenos Aires and holds degrees in Multimedia Design and Animated Film Performance. With a career spanning 18 years in the CG animation industry, Gastoncho has worked on a variety of projects including advertising, films, games, and cinematics. He specializes in the technical side of 3D development and takes pride in resolving issues and aiding his colleagues in their daily tasks. When he's not working, Gastoncho loves playing football and dancing to Cuban salsa beats!
Ben Sadler
Animator
Ben has completed multiple semesters at Kyosil as well as multiple other mentorship programs where he learned to train his eye for appealing animation and how to put the game before animation when needed. He has been working on everything from mocap to key-frame throughout the years he's been in the industry. While everything else is currently under NDA, one AAA title he has worked on is The Callisto Protocol. In his free time, you can find him playing game with friends, finding a new restaurant, or frame by frame studying the new Spider-verse.
Zara Jump
Animator
Zara graduated from Ringling College's Computer Animation program and "Jumped" into the world of game animation. She completed a two minute CG animated short, Ignite, during her schooling. Her first professional projects, Jedi: Survivor and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, involved handkey, mocap, and cinematics work. As a Floridian turned Californian, a lot of her inspiration is derived from observing nature, whether that's seeing some deer on a hike, or getting hissed at by a mother alligator on a fan boat ride.
Kevin Taylor
Senior Character Artist
Kevin's passion for art and animation began as a kid, when he spent most days drawing comic book heroes and Saturday morning cartoon characters with his best friend. When Pixar's groundbreaking Toy Story hit the theaters, he was inspired to pursue 3D modeling, leading to a fulfilling career as an artist in the entertainment industry. Kevin's work can be seen across multiple platforms, highlighted by seven animated features, including Scoob! (2020) and Toto (2024).
Yash Patel
Senior Game Designer
Yash is a University of Florida graduate from Tampa, Florida. Yash got into the gaming industry as a play tester but his passion for gaming soon led him to becoming a Game Designer. Yash’s experience includes Robot Entertainment, and most recently Nerve Software, where he worked on various AAA titles.
Michael Madden
Lead Level Designer
Mike has over 17 years in the industry. He got his start in QA and has since played an integral part designing several indie games and seven AAA titles, including the Call of Duty: Black Ops and Modern Warfare series. He has designed a large range of environments from tropical rivers & desert towns to futuristic cityscapes.
Bobbie Soques
Technical Designer / Quality Assurance
Bobbie is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing and Human-Computer Interaction and a minor in Game Design. She spent three years making experimental games through CMU's IDeATe program and is excited to join Stray Kite. Bobbie's favorite games are story-driven RPGs or interactive fiction (she is very bad at shooting people).
Kyle Stephenson
Director of Community
Kyle is a graduate of The University of Oklahoma and has 10+ years of video game industry experience. This experience ranges from Public Relations, Social Media, Community, and Influencer Marketing across various title releases from indie to AAA. Having passions that run beyond just video games, Kyle gathers influence and experience by staying current with various trends in a rapidly evolving landscape to best translate everything to new and exciting ideas to positively impact his work.
Chris Pickett
Lead Engineer
Chris has been part of the gaming industry since 2006 having shipped titles such as Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Borderlands 1 and 2, and supporting Borderlands 2 through much of its post-release patching and DLC lifetime. His experience ranges from gameplay to platform support, release engineering, build systems, tools, webservices, and more. Chris is highly regarded for his attentiveness as well as wide range of knowledge in many software engineering domains.
Ryan Slack
Lead Engineer
Ryan is a 10 year game industry veteran who started his career at Volition working on Saints Row: The Third before going to Robot Entertainment where he worked on the Orcs Must Die! franchise. Ryan's experience is primarily in Networking, Combat, and UI systems.
Andrew Christensen
Senior Engineer
Andrew got his start creating video games at a very young age. An alumnus of USC's GamePipe Lab as well as The Guildhall at SMU, Andrew has filled a variety of roles on different game development projects since 2008, including graphic designer, Flash animator and web developer. However, Andrew's real passion has always been software engineering, and he has contributed UI and gameplay features to indie and AAA titles alike, most recently for 5TH Cell and Bungie (Destiny 2).
Jonathan Sarasua
Engineer
Jonathan graduated from Clemson University with a bachelor’s in Computer Science and earned his master’s from SMU Guildhall specializing in programming. In between undergrad and Guildhall, he worked at Fast Enterprises as a database / sys admin. Jonathan is also a massive board game nerd, as is clear from his thesis, Dominion AI Using Monte Carlo Tree Search.
Bradley Christensen
Engineer
Bradley graduated from Stanford in 2017 and then completed a master's degree at SMU Guildhall for video game programming. At Guildhall, he received honors for his thesis in Entity-Component-System architecture, and then went on to begin his career in video game development working for BonusXP.
He also was a competitive springboard diver for 15 years, and traveled to four countries to compete for team USA.
Bradley loves to play ARPG's like Diablo and Path of Exile, as well as roguelikes (Risk of Rain 2), and his favorite game of all time: Rocket League.
Justin Bostian
Engineer
Justin graduated from Wichita State University with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. During his time at college he worked part-time as a test engineer at NetApp. Justin has been doing game development as a hobby since high school, including participating in several local game jams. Outside of programming, Justin enjoys cooking and studying history, an interest he attributes to playing Age of Empires for as long as he was old enough to use a mouse.
Kamuela Ahuna
Engineer
Kamuela graduated from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 2020 and went on to pursue a master's degree at SMU Guildhall for video game programming. He graduated while defending a thesis in procedural generation and from there, he continued on to work at BonusXP where he contributed to various procedural systems. Kamuela is a huge Sci-Fi shooter fan, attributing his interest in game development to the Halo franchise. Outside of games, he loves rock-climbing and Dungeons and Dragons.
Steven Hurley
Engineer
Steven graduated from University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a focus in Game Programming. Despite having many interests in the realm of computers, game development has always been his passion. You'll often find him participating in game jams or trying to complete his ever growing backlog of games. Outside of technology, he enjoys baking, trying out new cuisines, and going on hikes.
Kenny Huynh
QA Lead
Kenneth (or Kenny) is a University of Texas at Dallas alumnus with a bachelor’s degree in Arts and Technology. He has been working in QA in the games industry for over 3 years, on titles like Destiny 2 and New Super Lucky’s Tale. He is delighted to be a part of the fantastic crew at Stray Kite and helping to make creative experiences at the studio! In his free time, he is either trying something new, doing something writing/art-related, making egg rolls, or attempting to obliterate his backlog with great force.
Temon James
Quality Assurance
Temon graduated from Hinds Community College with an associate’s degree in Animation and Simulation Design. In his time before and during college he worked in the PlayStation game engine Dreams, where he designed and tested multiple games in his free time. As a fan of indie studios and their games, Temon is excited to join the game industry and Stray Kite as a QA member.
Justin Johansen
Quality Assurance
Justin graduated from Northeastern University with a combined degree in Computer Science and Game Development. He is very excited to start his journey into the game industry. Justin, in his spare time, loves to work on personal game projects and explore the world and what it has to offer. He believes that games are best played with others, and any game can become great just by who’s there to enjoy them with you.
Taylor George
Junior QA Tester
Taylor earned her BFA from West Texas A&M University with a focus on drawing and traditional 2D media before continuing on to earn her masters in Game Development from SMU Guildhall specializing in game art. She is delighted to begin her career in the games industry with Stray Kite Studios and add Quality Assurance to her toolbelt. Outside of video games, Taylor enjoys “grandma” activities including crochet, embroidery and baking, as well as more nerdy interests.
Michelle Hellquist
Administrative Assistant
Michelle graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelors in History and a Masters in Education. She has worked at various middle schools over the years as both a History and Special Education Teacher. She now uses her organization skills to work behind the scenes supporting Stray Kite's amazing creativity.