2018 Judges

Scott Gaeta is president of Renegade Game Studios. When Scott’s not making games he’s usually thinking about making games. He’s even been known to dream about making games.
 

Shari Spiro is the founder of Ad Magic / Breaking Games, printer of Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens, and publisher of games like Game of Phones and Game of 49.

Ludonova was founded in 2009. In its first year they won Game of Year in Spain with one of their first publications, Santiago de Cuba. In 2015 they published their first self-produced game, Watson and Holmes, which has since been published in more than five languages and in more than 15 countries. Today they are a successful game design studio, and this year at Essen they presented the two very well-received games Arkham Noir and Cosmogenesis.

Paul Peterson started his career as a game designer in the card mines of Wizards of the Coast in 1994. There he worked on almost a dozen collectible card games including Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and Harry Potter. It is also where his first card game, Guillotine, was published. Since then he has bounced back and forth between the worlds of electronic and tabletop gaming, and his credits include games for PC, mobile, and Facebook as well as numerous card and board games such as Smash Up, Unexploded Cow, and as one of the designers for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

Chris Kirkman is the founder of Dice Hate Me Games, and is currently the Game Development Director at Greater Than Games where he finds awesome games and makes them awesomer. He enjoys podcasting, whiskey, and games with camels.

Gil Hova is a game designer and publisher living in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has designed everything from word games to strategy games to party games. His games have raised almost $150,000 on Kickstarter to date, including The Networks, a strategy game about running your own television network.

Curt Covert is the owner of Smirk & Dagger Games. A veteran of 13 years, his designs include Cutthroat Caverns, Nevermore, and Hex Hex. He is also the inventor behind Crayola 3-D Outdoor Sidewalk Chalk, which won Game Of The Year at NY Toy Fair in 2009.

Anthony Racano is the host of The Cardboard Jungle Podcast and an avid gamer. He is not afraid to say what he truly feels about a game and lives by the mantra that "Friends tell friends their games suck."

Best known for his work on tabletop games such as Belfort, Junk Art, Akrotiri, But Wait There's More! and The Legend of Korra: Pro Bending Arena, Sen-Foong Lim is the short Chinese-Canadian dynamo based out of the second-best London in the world. Sen has worked with many top-tier companies as an editor or developer to bring their projects across the finish line in style. He has co-hosted more than 100 episodes of the Meeple Syrup Show, which focuses on designers discussing design, and is highly sought-after as a speaker at conventions and a lecturer for game design courses. You can follow Sen on Twitter @senfoonglim, check out shows at www.youtube.com/MeepleSyrup, and read along at www.bamboozlebrothers.com.

Cardboard Fortress Games is Anthony and Nicole Amato. The duo make games in their spare time in Philadelphia. 

Ryan Bruns has been the President of Mayday Games since 2012. As President, he is the Project Manager of the company. He oversees the whole scope of Mayday Games and is the gatekeeper of the games Mayday develops and publishes. Ryan attributes his love of board games to his aunt, who sent his family a new, non-mainstream board game for Christmas every year while he was growing up. In 2006, Ryan started a small board game group in his home in Utah, and it has since grown into a gaming group that meets twice monthly which includes several podcasts, four publishers, its own Slack channel and an email list consisting of more than 300 people. He loves to play dexterity games, and his favorite board game mechanic is area control. He also loves mint chocolate chip ice cream – just in case you’re looking to slide a bribe his way. 

Daniel Peterson is the Lead Developer for Mayday Games. He’s a rock star at Mayday and outside too – having rocked out at Warped Tour, SXSW and a ton of other hip and cool music festivals. He loves to find new and exciting games for Mayday to publish and to work with game designers to improve their designs. When he isn’t rockin’ and rollin’ at Mayday, he most enjoys spending time with his family.  

Brian is the President of Overworld Games and has co-designed games such as Good Cop Bad Cop, New Salem, Exposed, and Leaders of Euphoria: Choose a Better Oppressor. He discusses design and publishing philosophy on the Board Game Business Podcast.

Jordan and Mandy Goddard are a husband/wife game design duo. What started as a love for playing games together led to a passion for game design. They self-published their first game, Collapse, together in 2014 and released Lotus with Renegade Game Studios in 2016.

Aaron is a video and board game designer and longtime resident of San Francisco, California. He has worked as a game designer for SilverTree Media, Electronic Arts, ngmoco:), ZipZapPlay, and Popcap, and is now Executive Producer at Super Lucky Casino. Besides nurturing an overwhelmingly large collection of board games, other interests include world travel, playing piano, vegan cooking, and studying languages.

Dirk is a social futurist and game designer. His most recent release is Tesla vs. Edison: Duel, and he is currently working on Chronicles games, a sea exploration game, and Solium Infernum.

Dr. Wictz has written academic-inspired articles disguised as practical advice for board game design since 2012. Designers of You Fool. Learn more at dr.wictz.com.

An inventive problem-solver by nature, Sandy is an avid gamer and playtester. Using her “all things logistics” know-how, this jack of all trades eagerly helps designers make their games the best they can be.

Gerald King is the driving force behind Ultimate Team-Up, a group dedicated to helping new game designers get their games in front of players at all stages of development and working with them to become more successful entrepreneurs. He is currently designing Flip N Finds Diner, a classically styled memory game that places players in a kitchen filling orders. He designs games under the Spontaneously Combustible Games label in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jay Treat designed Cahoots, Merchants of Araby, Cunning Folk, Strange Gravity, and, expected in 2018, A'Writhe from WizKids.

Dan Cassar's first game, Cavemen: The Quest for Fire, was published in 2012 by Rio Grande Games, and his second, Arboretum, published in 2015 by Z-Man Games, was nominated for two Golden Geek Awards. His third game, The Blood of an Englishman, won the 2016 Cardboard Edison Award for best unpublished game and was published that same year by Renegade Game Studios.

Lauren Woolsey is a co-founder of CGS Unit, a company whose goal is to "share our love of Crafts, Games, and Science with the world!" She has designed three games, and the first two are science-themed games that have been featured in the Boston Festival of Games Tabletop Showcase: Stars, Inc (in 2014) and Amino (in 2015). Her latest game brings crafts and games together in a card game called Match Quilt, and is licensed with Dice Hate Me Games. She earned her doctorate in astrophysics from Harvard in May 2016 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the physical sciences department at Grand Rapids Community College.
 

Matt Fantastic makes games. He designs and publishes weirdo indie games and other stuff as Prettiest Princess, designs games for a variety of other publishers, owns Elm City Games retail shop and game library, teaches game design at Quinnipiac University, is Creative Director at Vice Games, runs the New Haven Game Makers Guild, organizes Fantasticon, does general game industry consulting/fixing, and loves unicorns and weed. If you see him around, you should totally buy him a beer.

Alex Cutler is a board game designer based out of New Haven, Connecticut. He is the co-president of Double Alex Games and an employee of Prettiest Princess Games. Double Alex Games has upcoming projects with Smirk and Dagger, Brain Games, Thundergryph, Lay Waste Games, and Breaking Games. Prettiest Princess seeks to produce and publish smaller runs of high-concept/weird indie titles that offer unique play experiences or social commentary.

Scott is an amateur game designer and spent a number of years as a youth worker using games to build relationships with the younger generation. His interest is in how games bring people together.

Banana Chan is a Canadian game designer and video producer based in New York. She is the CEO and Co-Founder of the promotional marketing and publishing company, Game and a Curry. Some of her previous projects include the larps They're Onto Me (featured in The Imposters Anthology) and Grimasques (featured in Itras By: The Menagerie). Game and a Curry has produced Yeah! Diamonds and Judge Dredd: Block War. You can follow her on Twitter: @banana_chan_vid, Instagram: banana.chann, YouTube: Banana Chan.

Dave "The Game" Chalker is an award-winning game designer who started as an intern for Looney Labs in 2001 and has been designing his own games since. His credits include Get Bit!, Heat, Thief's Market, and a lot of playtesting of other published games. His playtesting group's style has been described as "brutal." He lives in Maryland with his partner and at least three dogs and one outnumbered cat.  

Andrew is the founder of Knapsack Games and designer of Apotheca and Knee Jerk. Follow him on Twitter @knapsackgames.

Kevin Brusky is the force behind APE Games, a board and card game publishing company, since 1997. APE has published such games as Rolling Freight, Spirits of the Rice Paddy, Order of the Stick, The Great Dinosaur Rush, and Trickerion. 

Mike is the founder of Coalition Game Studios, a freelance development and playtesting service. He currently lives in Orlando, Florida, slowly overworking himself to death as a project manager and developer for Quick Simple Fun Games. 

Steven Cole is both a game designer and game publisher. He is the owner of Escape Velocity Games and, of course, dozens of unfinished prototypes. He is a member of Table Treasure Games and is slowly getting the Baltimore Boardgame Design Group up and running. He can be found on Twitter @SteveOnGames.

Pam Walls is a board game designer based out of Toronto, Ontario. She is the designer of the party game Hold That Face, published by Hasbro in 2017. She started Board Game Broads, a forum for female board game designers, and founded ProtoTO, a tabletop game design convention in Toronto, which held its inaugural event in the summer of 2016.

Eric Buscemi is one of the co-founders of Punchboard Media, the writer behind the Cardboard Hoard blog and reviews, and a contributor to the What Did You Play This Week podcast and The Cubist video show.

Ian is the designer of Constellations and the upcoming Curio. He also is one-third of the podcasting team behind Breaking into Board Games. He works full-time in educational professional development, but also works as a freelance game developer with a myriad of companies. 

Eric Alvarado has been playing games all of his life. More recently he has been working on several designs, two of which are currently signed by publishers — Mill City (Knightworks) and Vinyl (Talon Strike Studios). Eric also has partnered with Cardboard Edison to successfully kickstart and publish Suzanne and Chris Zinsli’s Cobras. When Eric is not working as an IT professional or playing board games, he is a husband and father of two boys — Ari and Eli. 

Jeff Johnston is a military defense contractor who served more than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force. He’s also designed family games for publishers such as Education Outdoors, Gamewright, and Breaking Games, and is an involved leader of the greater Boston area Game Maker's Guild and Boston Festival of Indie Games.

Charles plays, studies, teaches, designs, and compulsively buys tabletop games. He currently develops games for Foxtrot Games and teaches tabletop game design at a local high school. 

Allysha and Kevin are the Canadian game design duo behind the Dancing Giant Games blog and Play & Pub tabletop prototype convention.

Tim is a game designer and publisher as part of Galileo Games. He’s got a special fondness for two-player games and terrible puns. He spends his spare time making dice birds to torment Chris Kirkman.

Daniel is a creative entrepreneur, avid gamer and co-founder of Board Game Circus, a publisher/distributor located in Germany. Prior to Board Game Circus, he acquired knowledge and expertise in media design, publishing, marketing/promotion as well as artist-, event- and community management. He is a communicative networker, always striving for exciting cooperations and challenging projects.

Ben Pinchback is an engineer by day and an avid gamer. He used to have hobbies, but now he has five kids. He designs games at night because he can't leave the house for fear of the monsters blowing it up.

Matt Riddle is a husband and father of two lovely teens. Employed by the man to keep our country safe, he keeps his sanity by designing board games you may or may not have heard of and playing video games you probably have heard of. And eating.

Rob and Sean Moore have been creating instructional/gameplay/review videos for a couple of years now, often focusing on bringing comprehensive coverage to otherwise overlooked games. They both have experience in playtesting prototype games such as The Butterfly Garden and Indulgence, and they were judges for the 2017 Cardboard Edison Award. Outside of the gaming hobby, Rob is a historian/teacher and Sean is a filmmaker/musician.

Daniel Newman lives on Twitter and also designs board games. An early version of his game Enemy Anemone was a finalist in the inaugural Cardboard Edison Award. His first published game, Ahead in the Clouds, is available from Button Shy Games, and he is expecting at least four more games of his to be released in 2018. He rarely talks about himself in the third person.

Dustin works full-time in tabletop, writing and editing for board
games and RPGs. He and his wife Atalie live in Michigan with
their two cats. The cats own hundreds of games.

Australian judge Peter C. Hayward is an Australian game designer/author from Australia. He was born Down Under (Australia) and now lives in Canada*.

*not Australia. It's confusing, we know.

Ben Begeal is not a game designer. He came up with the idea for Say What Again, but a bunch of real designers helped make it good. He develops games with Button Shy Games. He is no one of consequence.

Diane Sauer owns a business restoring old pinball machines, is a game designer and co-owner of Shoot Again Games. Her games include Conspiracy!, Pinball Showdown, and Bigfoot vs. Yeti. 

Nick Sauer is a scientist and game designer and has a collection of close to 3,000 games. He is co-owner of Shoot Again Games. His games include Mystery Rummy Al Capone, Conspiracy!, and Looting Atlantis. 

Tam Myaing is an artist, engineer, entrepreneur, and game designer. He has been creating digital and board games since age 10 and is the founder of Wee Big Games and Neuronic Games. @TamAtPlay

Chris is the designer of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, which won a 2015 Mensa Award and was nominated for 2016 SXSW Best Tabletop Game of the Year. He enjoys hockey, sushi, and long walks on the beach, and his favorite color to play as is red, so leave it alone!

Marguerite Cottrell is a Hobby Brand Manager at PSI by day, vlogger by night at maggibot.com.

Burke Drew is a software engineer, political junkie, and board game designer/player/hoarder. He is a member of the Game Designers of North Carolina.

Doug cut his gaming teeth on classic board and trick-taking games, but continually felt obligated to modify them and/or create house rules. While he has dabbled in game design, being a published game designer remains a mirage on the horizon. In 1987 he was introduced to Settlers of Catan, and after living four years in Germany, he was forever hooked on euros. He truly loves playing games, be it an abstract, a euro or a highly themed Amerithrash. While winning is certainly important, it is the experience of playing a game with those who share his passion which he finds the most rewarding. Gloaters and whiners are the bane of the hobby. He feels that in this era of ever social distancing brought on (in part) by social media masquerading as legitimate relationships, tabletop games create a unique space for people to interact as humans (even if they are playing zombies spreading fresh brains on toast).

Matt is a designer, founder of the Game Designers of North Carolina, and an aspiring evil genius who will one day rid the world of walnuts.

Ryan is the founding editor of The Cardboard Republic, a site with an analytical approach to game reviews and a soft spot for indie games.

Eric Yurko is a software engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also the writer and photographer behind What's Eric Playing?, a weekly board game review blog.

Nate Murray is the Business Development Manager for IDW Media. (It's cooler than it sounds.) He claims Duke. Preferred pronouns: The dude, duder, el duderino. Ally.

3rd Generation Nerd. Long-time board game enthusiast, aspiring board game designer. EHS professional, amateur absent-minded professor.

Tim is a local to Boston and has been involved in the tabletop game design community for some time. In addition to running and designing for Gameworthy Labs, he is the Vice President for BostonFIG, New England’s largest Indie Game Festival, where he runs the tabletop showcase. Tim is also the President of the Boston Game Makers Guild, as well as a judge for IndieCade. Tim is active in the game design community and has spoken on a number of panels, appeared on podcasts, and written a number of articles, all pertaining to game design.

Doug Levandowski is an English teacher and game designer from New Jersey. His games include Gothic Doctor (with John McNeill), Fired, Unpub: The Unpublished Card Game (with JR Honeycutt), Seven Minutes in Hell, and Kids on Bikes (with Jon Gilmour). Fired was the winner of BostonFIG's prize for Most Dynamic Game in 2016. In his games, he tries to immerse players in offbeat worlds and encourage their own creativity. He lives with his remarkably supportive wife, shockingly cute baby daughter, and extraordinarily apathetic cats.

Erik Herrington is a web engineer by day, indie game designer by night, and has been active in the game design world for the last five years. Soon, you will know his works. Now you will face his judgement.

Zach Connelly is a Handyman by day and the Lead Designer at Royal N. Games by night. His passion for taking things apart to see how they work, is what inspired him to begin designing games in the first place. He enjoys cheap whiskey and is comically bad at rolling dice.

David is a passionate board game enthusiast, euro game evangelist, and budding game designer. He's designed Automas for Scythe, Charterstone, Gaia Project, and more. He is currently working on an expansion for Euphoria, the Automa for the next Scythe expansion, and a variety of other amazing projects for 2018. He loves helping designers make their designs better.

JR Honeycutt is a game designer and developer who lives in Ft. Worth, TX. His work includes published co-designs Unpub: The Unpublished Card Game, Food Truck Destruction Derby, and Fantasy Fantasy Baseball. His development credits include legacy games SeaFall and Charterstone, as well as the Chronicles series and Tesla vs. Edison: Powering Up. JR runs the community organization DFW Nerd Night and hosts The Nerd Nighters twitch stream. He is also the Tinker-in-Chief at Restoration Games

Matt Holden founded the Indie Game Alliance to give smaller independent game developers the same kind of world-class volunteer marketing organization he had been a part of with Steve Jackson Games' Men in Black program. Prior to forming the Alliance, Matt ran the marketing, manufacturing and research & development operations for a Florida electronics manufacturer, increasing the year-over-year sales by over $1 million in his first year in the position. In addition to marketing, he loves to write code and is passionate about gaming, leading him to pursue and earn his degree in Game Design & Development from Full Sail University in 2004. Matt handles much of the game consulting for IGA members, develops new partnerships, and sneaks off to the lab build new goodies for the Alliance every chance he gets. He recently married IGA's assistant director, Victoria, and the couple live and work together in Orlando, Florida.

John du Bois is a game designer and speech pathologist from Michigan. He's the designer of Avignon by Button Shy Games and assorted Dungeons and Dragons Organized Play adventures.

Chris and Suzanne Zinsli are the founders of Cardboard Edison. They are bloggers and advocates for the board game design community. As designers, their published and soon-to-be-published titles include Ceylon, Cobras and Tessen. LilyAnne Zinsli is a budding game designer.