Guests for 2024
Our Family Plays Games: Content Creators
Our Family Plays Games [Grant, Mik, and Starla] is an African American family-owned business whose mission is to promote growth and awareness of the modern board game hobby. From day one, their goal has been to bring more BIPOC’s and families into the board game hobby. They launched on social media in 2018 which helped them establish themselves in the board game hobby. In January 2020, they started posting videos on YouTube and by June 2020 were contacted by and featured on Good Morning America. Since then, they have been featured on several programs and in publications, such as - NBC News Online, Senet Magazine (UK), Ligadas.com (Brazil), a variety of YouTube programs, podcasts, and on local television in Omaha, NE. In January 2022, they launched a second program on their channel, called OFPG Voices to highlight other underrepresented voices in the hobby. In addition, they make special appearances at board game conventions all around the country.
Link to our socials & YouTube: Our Family Plays Games
John D. Clair: Game Designer
Enjoying sunshine and great people, John lives in Los Angeles and professionally designs board games all of the time and does data analytics some of the time. John’s game designs range from light and silly to thinky and complex. He is probably best known for designing Space Base, Ready Set Bet, and for inventing the Card Crafting System™ that is used in several of his designs, including Mystic Vale and Dead Reckoning.
In his spare time he continues obsessively designing and playing board games. When not gaming/working, he is usually playing with/parenting his 4 kiddos. Given the chance he likes masquerading as an outdoorsman—hiking, biking, running, playing bad golf and, once-up-a-time, pretty-decent baseball. Homeschooled as a youth, he likes to think he appears normal in public, and he somehow managed to marry a beautiful woman with whom he shares the fun and challenge of parenting the amazing kiddos.
Jon Gilmour: Game Consultant | Designer
Jonathan Gilmour is a Board Game Consultant and Designer from NW Ohio. His credits include: Co-Lab, Dinosaur Island, Wasteland Express, Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, and Vault Wars. His greatest weaknesses are writing Bios, and the color green. He loves long walks on the beach and play testing games. Sometimes at the same time. His favorite color is Orange, so please let him have that as a player color. His favorite games are Cosmic Encounter, Nations, and Hanabi. His least favorite game is "The What Game Should We Play" game. Jon gets gaming!
Jeff Grubb: Game Designer | Author
Jeff Grubb is an author and game designer. He is the co-creator (with Ed Greenwood) of the Forgotten Realms setting and one of the co-founders of the Dragonlance setting. He has written fifteen novels and thirty short stories set in such worlds as Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Guild Wars. He has written and contributed to more than a hundred games and game support products, including the Star Wars RPG, the Star Warsminiatures game for Wizards of the Coast, and Star Wars Attacktix for Hasbro. He is also the creator of the Whappamanga VoxBox, a handy device that allows Wookiees and Gamorreans to be understood in Basic. Jeff has many accolades and is credited for several works which include games like Diablo 2, Guild Wars, and currently The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom. He resides in Seattle with his wife and two cats, family.
Eric M. Lang: Game Designer
Eric M. Lang is a Canadian game designer. He began his career as a playtester for FASA before publishing his first game, Mystick independently in 2000. He has since worked with publishers Fantasy Flight Games, WizKids and CMON, among others. He is the recipient of the 2016 Diana Jones Award. In March 2017, Lang became CMON's director of game design. Lang left his position with CMON in September 2020 to focus on freelance work and activism in the board game industry. A couple years later, Eric, partnered up with the Exploding Kittens team continuing his dream of creating engaging fun!
Emerson Matsuuchi: Game Designer | Teacher
Emerson Matsuuchi, formerly a software developer and architect of many years, is now an award-winning game designer. Most well known for the Century Series of games from Plan B, and his recent title success, Foundations of Rome. He has worked with many established publishers in the industry such as Plaid Hat Games, Plan B, Next Move, Arcane Wonders, HeidelBAER, IDW, Pandasaurus, Underdog, and Trick or Treat Studios with several licensed products on the horizon such as Halloween (1978) The Board Game, Persona 5 Royal Card Game, and Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game.
Andrew Parks: Game Designer | Publisher
Andrew Parks entered the world of game design in 2003 with the release of Ideology: The War of Ideas, and followed in 2004 with Camelot Legends. In 2005, Andrew and Jason Hawkins of Siren Bridge Publishing co-designed Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean, which won the Origins Board Game of the Year. That year, Andrew formed Quixotic Games, a game design studio devoted to creating innovative games for a variety of publishers.
The Quixotic design team consists of 16 core developers, as well as countless playtesters, who work on many game projects at the same time. Their games have been nominated for many industry awards and have earned distinction in game indexes such as Games Magazine's Games 100, Austria's Wiener Spiele Mischung Selektion, and the Dice Tower's Top 100 Games of All Time.
Throughout the past 16 years, Quixotic Games has become known for its devotion to theme in games, including licensed game properties such as Dungeons & Dragons, Marvel Comics, Star Trek, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Justice League, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Frank Miller's 300. In 2013, Quixotic Games began publishing its own titles, including Canterbury, Dungeon Alliance, and Core Worlds.
Jake Pauwels: Content Creator
Know for Adventures in Aardia, Roll for Sandwich!
Jacob “Jake” Pauwels has been many things: videographer, designer, touring musician, writer, culinary adventurer, husband, stay-at-home father, and now, the most unexpected thus far— TikTok sensation. Pauwels’ “Roll for Sandwich” series blends the drama and suspense of high-stake TTRPG rolls with the fun of trying new foods. Jake has amassed a following of upwards of 2.2 million and has created something truly unique that has helped bring the excitement of TTRPGs to a brand-new audience.Danielle Reynolds: Game Designer | Podcaster
Danielle Reynolds is an LGBTQ+ game designer most known for working on HerStory, Secret Clue Animals, and eBay Buy It Now. She was a Rising Star Nominee at the TAGIE Awards in 2023. Currently, she works for Wise Wizard Games as their Project Director leading their new Wacky Wizard imprint. Beyond her day job, she is the host of a podcast called “Game Design Unboxed: Inspiration to Publication'' hosted on the Know Direction Network. In the podcast she talks with tabletop game designers on specific games or series of games they have created. Listeners will learn where the initial idea for the game came from, how the game developed over time and where the game is now after being published. She also volunteers as a Director with Tabletop Gaymers promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion by championing the visibility and recognition of the LGBTQIA+ community through tabletop gaming. Beyond that she is on the Advisory Boards of UNPUB, TTGDA (Tabletop Game Designers Association) and Board Game Besties. Her goal is to help promote more diverse faces in gaming through designing and volunteering in tabletop gaming!
Jason Slingerland: Game Designer | Podcaster
Jason Slingerland has designed several games, including Water Balloon Washout, Unreal Estate, Into the Black Forest, No Context, and Tir Na Nog. He has been podcasting about game design for over a decade, hosting a weekly documentary podcast, Building the Game.