Welcome to Bonsai Collective
Bonsai Collective is a remote-first game development studio based all over the UK. Founded in 2019 by Hollie Emery, Harry Corr & Benni Hill, we are an inclusive team of developers passionate about world-building, story-telling, & classic video games.
Bonsai Collective is wholeheartedly committed to fostering positive mental health & wellbeing within the studio, letting each member feel safe and secure in their own skin, identities, belief, values, and culture. Our mission is to create original game universes where players can engage with deep & connected play experiences.
Our Values
Bonsai Collective are focused and committed to creating a safe inclusive working environment for the entire team. It is incredibly important to us that our employees feel safe and secure in their own skin, identities, belief, values and culture.
Include underrepresented voices in our stories
Be champions for diversity in the games industry
Prioritise staff wellbeing and a healthy work-life balance
Create a safe, inclusive work space
These are the principles that have guided our studio from the start, and the principles in which we will build upon. There is always more that we can do as a studio to support inclusion, and ways that we want to build on the inclusion and voices that contribute toward the development of our games - to create representation that matters
Our Team
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Hollie Emery
MANAGING DIRECTOR | THEY/HE
Hollie Emery is an experienced Producer who has guided multiple studios to launch with BAFTA award-winning Overcooked, Yoku’s Island Express and other games working at Team17. Most recently they have also been involved in Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Hollie has been featured in MCV 30 under 30 and nominated for the 2020 Game Dev Heroes Production award.
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![A shoulders-up black & white image of a man with short dark hair & short to mid-length dark beard smiling at the camera. Wearing black rim glasses & a black t-shirt.]()
Benni Hill
CREATIVE DIRECTOR | HE/HIM
Benni Hill is an experienced game director, writer, and designer who has led the creative charge on critically acclaimed titles such as Ether One and Q.U.B.E. 2. He was nominated for an IGF Award for Excellence in Design for his work on the video game Duskers in 2017.
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![A shoulders-up black & white photo of a man with mid-length dark hair & black rim glasses smiling at the camera. Wearing a black t-shirt.]()
Harry Corr
ART DIRECTOR
Harry Corr is an experienced art director, environment creator, and concept artist who has created incredible visual identities on products such as Q.U.B.E. 2. Harry’s work was nominated for a TIGA Award for Best Visual Design in 2018.
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John Reynolds
LEAD PROGRAMMER | HE/HIM
John Reynolds is a programmer with over 20 years experience with key roles on the multi-award winning Rainbow Six Vegas; VR Horror game The Persistence; and Hyper Sentinel. Contributor to books on Game AI and was a columnist for Develop magazine.
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Matthew Reynolds
PROGRAMMER | HE/HIM
Matthew Reynolds is a programmer with a strong love for making games. Coming from a background in physics and quantum computing research, he moved into game development to follow his passion..
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David Housden
COMPOSER | HE/HIM
David Housden is a BAFTA and Ivor Novello nominated composer best known for his musical scores on BAFTA winning games, Thomas Was Alone and Volume, as well as his work on Ivor Novello nominee Q.U.B.E. 2, and Rare’s remake of cult classic, Battletoads.
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Kyra Atkinson
SENIOR ENVIRONMENT ARTIST | SHE/THEY
Kyra Atkinson is an environment artist with several years in industry. She's worked across many areas of world building in AAA (notably Ubisoft's 'Tom Clancy's: The Division' franchise), VR and most recently Virtual Production for film/TV.
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Jonny Pickton
SENIOR LEVEL DESIGNER | HE/HIM
Jonny Pickton is a passionate game developer with multiple years experience in the industry across many specialisms. He contributed greatly to the design and code for the video game The Occupation and was the Lead Designer for the mobile game Lumi Nova: Tales of Courage.
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Hrvoje Mitic
BUSINESS CONSULTANT | HE/HIM
Hrvoje Mitic is a Producer and Business Consultant. He is a Founder and the Business Development Director at GamesCo. London, a UK consultancy supporting indie developers, he has helped successfully finance, produce and publish various independent games. Having worked on multiple award-winning titles, Hrvoje sets the path for the team from idea conception through to release and beyond.
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Marie Trystad
ANIMATOR | SHE/HER
Marie Trystad is a Norwegian games animator, who moved to England to pursue a career in games. With a big passion for games and animated movies, she's been animating for several years through her BA and MA at Falmouth University and continues to do so at Bonsai Collective.
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Lenny Ilett
CHARACTER ARTIST | HE/HIM
A character artist with numerous years of industry experience. Having worked on characters for multiple games that are still to make their debut. Alongside games, he has also worked in the film and TV industry.
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Alex Milner
LEVEL DESIGNER | HE/HIM
A Level Designer with over five years of industry experience. Having spent most of that time working on Sci-Fi FPS levels both for The Persistence and multiplayer maps for Star Citizen. Alongside games, he is also an amateur fantasy writer and tabletop hobbyist.
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![A shoulders-up black & white photo of a man with short dark hair, facial hair & black rim glasses smiling at the camera wearing a dark jacket.]()
Jake Guest
SENIOR ENVIRONMENT ARTIST | HE/HIM
Jake Guest is an Environment Artist with several years experience working on projects ranging from small mobile titles to large studio productions. Most recently working on Ubisoft’s Far Cry VR: Dive into Insanity and Fracked for PSVR.
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![A shoulders-up black & white photo of a femme presenting person with short curly hair & shaved sides smiling at the camera. Wearing black rim glasses & a dark top.]()
Shawny Alison
COMMUNITY MANAGER | THEY/THEM
Shawny had a background in Forensic Science/PhD Chemistry before moving into the content creation sphere & onto community management. They were responsible for helping to build the largest EU player-led community for Guild Wars 2 between 2013 and 2018 as the Community & Social Media Manager. They are passionate about accessibility, diversity & inclusion in the games industry & within gaming communities.
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Laura Mauro
SENIOR WRITER | THEY/THEM
Laura Mauro is an award-winning writer of horror and weird fiction. Their debut short story collection Sing Your Sadness Deep won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, and contains two British Fantasy Award-winning short stories.
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Ali Tocher
LEAD AUDIO DESIGNER | HE/HIM
Ali Tocher is an audio designer whose main focus is on player experience and supporting narrative. He has worked with a bunch of great teams on a variety of games and 2020 saw him honoured as a Bafta Breakthrough for games. He is also exploring using game audio tech in hospitals.
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Tom Van Asten
ENVIRONMENT ARTIST | HE/HIM
Tom van Asten is a Dutch Environment Artist with a love for making and building epic worlds. Previously, Tom had an internship at Wolfdog Interactive, working on the VR title Panther VR in Unity. In his spare time, he likes creating his own worlds in Unreal Engine.
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Kirsty Gillmore
VOICE DIRECTOR | SHE/HER
Kirsty Gillmore is an experienced voice and casting director for games, animation and audio drama. She has worked on game titles ranging from mobile to AAA, including Destruction AllStars, Baldur's Gate 3 and the LiveALive remake. In 2021 she was selected for the prestigious BAFTA Breakthrough programme as a Voice Director for games.
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![A shoulders-up black & white photo of a woman with mid-length blonde hair smiling at the camera wearing large over-ear headphones & with a keyboard behind her.]()
Sarah Sherlock
SENIOR AUDIO DESIGNER | SHE/HER
Sarah Sherlock is a passionate audio designer from Ireland, with several years experience across different disciplines. Since going full time into games professionally in 2020, Sherlock has worked on titles such as The Sims 4, Baldur’s Gate 3, Paleo Pines and more. On the side she works in film as a sound designer and composer, and is a slave to 4 rescue dogs and 5 rescue rabbits!
