The Syzygy Cult is (at present) an association of six high school students, forming the Syzygy Cult itself, along with Brett Thayer who worked as independent contractors for the Syzygy Cult. Mostly located in and around Portland, Maine, they were shocked to discover that their regionalism was shattered by the inclusion of a resident of Utah.
About the Individual Members of the Syzygy Cult
Dustin Mitchell is one of the main Syzygy Cult programmers. He was drawn into the Mantra project claiming “I’ll just write the blitters, and you guys can do what you want,” but by the time it was all over he had worked on just about every part of Mantra. He realized he was doing too much work on the game when he dreamed repeatedly of a suitcase with its "isExplosive" bit set. He has an annoying tendency to remain on the phone with Jake for several hours at a time, sometimes stretching into those wee hours of the morning when the real programming gets done. As a matter of fact, it's 1:16 AM right now, and with just a little Pepsi he feels great! Dustin is a Junior at Waynflete High School by day, taking far too many courses to have a life this year.
Jake Beal is another of the programmers for the Syzygy Cult, and holds responsibility for the Mantra MapEditor (“It work’s don’t it? At least sort of”). Jake lives in Portland, Maine and also goes to Waynflete High School, where he is a Junior and a fixture in the computer room. He too has had times when programming overwhelmed him and he sucessfully debugged a piece of code in a dream. Unfortunately, by the time he had started up his computer, he had forgotten. Since we still can't figure out what it was, that bug couldn't have been that bad. His other interests include theater, piano, lording his driver’s licence over other cult members, and writing.
Macneil Shonle is yet another programmer for the Syzygy Cult. Also a Junior at Waynflete High School. He likes: computers, weight lifting, philosophy and hanging out. His best advice to someone is: “Take it easy,” something that he himself should do more often… Anyway, things are on the up and up for him, and he looks forward to future projects from The Syzygy Cult.
Gabe Ganberg is the person most directly responsible for Mantra’s plot, the actions of the monsters, and the general game design, and is also a Junior at Waynflete High School. He is not a programmer, although he plays one on TV.
Ben Cote is the tallest member the Syzygy Cult. His interest including theatre, show tunes, shiny things and twiddling with his fancy hardware. His main contribution to Mantra was hanging around and bothering the programers. Not to mention dancing Irish jigs while quoting Andrew Lloyd Webber shows. He can be reached at “benyc@biddeford.com".
Brett Thayer is a 28 year old free-lance Illustrator/Designer living in Salt Lake City, Utah (no man’s land). Graduated with a B.A. in Fine Art from the University of Utah in 1991. Brett created nearly all of the graphics for Mantra, for which the Syzygy Cult is eternally grateful.
Ben Birney was born in Washington DC in 1979. He grew up in North Yarmouth, Maine, using Apples and Macintoshes. He attended public school until eighth grade, when he finally became fed up with being taunted as a computer nerd, and transferred to Waynflete School, where he is currently a sophomore. He learned to program in C and has used his ten years of piano experience to write MODs. After finishing the MODs for Mantra, his current projects include a tactical war game, an arcade style spaceship game, and an in-play aid for Dungeons and Dragons called DM’s Aid.
