Julie Leung – Ripper Core Team
Producer/Story/Gameplay

Julie is a 4th year undergraduate anthropology student at UCLA. She became involved in The Ripper Project when she took a video games concept course at UCLA in spring of 2009. The idea of The Ripper game came through a decision to do something different in a video game, to create something unlike most mainstream games that were being released. Julie cracks the whip, helping with story and gameplay decisions whenever possible and while trying to keep everyone motivated and on time with their tasks.

Derek Kulinski – Ripper Core Team
Development/Story/Gameplay

Derek Kulinski is currently close to getting his B.S. in Computer Science
student and plans to continue on to grad school. His main interests are closely tied to his major, especially in areas of security, networking, compiler construction, operating systems and embedded systems. Outside of school he was also involved in several Open Source projects. Currently he works at UCLA’s Center For Embedded Networked Sensing and also the Laboratory for Advanced Systems Research at UCLA. For Ripper he will be the heading the Lightspeed development team.

Michelle Lopes – Ripper Core Team
Art/Character Design/Story/Gameplay

Michelle Lopes is a graduate animation student at UCLA, with an undergraduate degree in screenwriting. Artist, writer, gamer, and protector of snails everywhere, she believes that the story is where it starts, and the heart is where all good stories should take you in the end. She’s worked on 9 for Focus Features, taught adults how to speak English, and can sort a library book with relative alacrity. A lover of all things Victorian, and a champion of the female protagonist, Michelle helped develop the Ripper game, and currently acts as an in-house artist and creative lead. Check out her blog at spasticsnap.blogspot.com, or Twitter her @spasticsnap

Raza Ahmad – Ripper Core Team
Art/Modeling/Story/Gameplay

Raza Ahmad is currently pursuing an MFA in Film Direction at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. His background includes parallel decades of network and IT infrastructure management and theater production and direction. He is also a multi-faceted electronic artist, with experience in VFX, 2.5D animation, 3D modelling and animation, sound and music. A gamer since the good old days, Raza has an involved interest in the converging medium of film and interactive media. Part of the initial concept design crew, Raza will be continuing to help by riding Maya like the hefty cow that she is.

Michelle Auyoung
Developer

Michelle Auyoung is studying towards a BS in Computer Science at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA. She also plans to minor in Film because of her strong interest in the arts and entertainment. She has always been fascinated by the technology and use of computers in media, and would love to work on technical aspects of projects in the creative world. In her free time, she likes to draw and play games. For this project, she will help to program the Ripper game with the Gamebryo Lightspeed engine. She looks forward to working on some creative and exciting gameplay!

Joey Degges
Developer

Joey Degges is expecting to graduate from UCLA in 2011 with a degree in Computer Science. During the past few years he has worked with several organizations including the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, Google Summer of Code, and Arete Associates. He has worked on projects dealing with image processing algorithm development, low powered distributed imaging systems, parallel computing, and video encoding. He will be assisting in the development of the Ripper game.

Chrystal Lee
Design/Research/Modeling

Chrystal Lee is a native Angelino who once dreamed that her name would light up the Great White Way. Naturally, she despaired when she found she really didn’t like New York and her only hope for a prolonged career would be for “Miss Saigon” to run for generations. Fortunately in college, she discovered a love for all the fun and pretty things created for each stage production, and so decided to become a designer in order to make all the fun and pretty things she loved so much. While in school, she met Raza Ahmad and tagged along when he began his graduate studies at UCLA. His time at UCLA proved beneficial for Chrystal as well, giving her the opportunity to put into practice the training she received in school, as well as some time to further develop her Photoshop and Maya skills. After working on a few projects together, Chrystal created Boutique Designs with Hazel Meeks, another UCLA graduate student, and has since been in high demand. The company has now gone “global” with Hazel back in London, and Chrystal taking over all Los Angeles operations. She is so thrilled to work on “Ripper” with all the crew and have a chance to flex her Maya muscles while melding it with all of her design experience.

Kristy Norindr
Outreach / Game Theory

Kristy Norindr is currently an MA student in the Cinema and Media Studies program at UCLA. Her background is varied and is filled with things like: retouching for magazines in NYC, launching a guerilla marketing company in LA, and cooking delicious food for her food blog. She is the president of LUDUS, a new graduate student organization at UCLA focusing on game theorizing, making, and playing. Her current research examines how issues of embodiment and immersion in different FPS franchises deal with the question of narrative progression. Kristy’s mission is to connect theory with practice by standing with one foot in the industry, and one foot in academia. Her role in the Ripper game is outreach, and theory guru, among other esoteric and highly complex roles. Game on Bitchez!