2024 Award Judges

James Wallis has been reviewing board games professionally since the 1980s. He is best known for designing the first story-game 'The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen', co-designing the influential storytelling card game 'Once Upon a Time', and being director of Hogshead Publishing, the largest RPG publisher in the UK in the 1990s. He lectured in game design for a decade at London South Bank University, runs the Game Design Masterclass series of events, and managed Asmodee's only UK game studio. Today he runs the game consultancy Spaaace and his latest book, Everybody Wins (Aconyte Books), covers the rise of modern board games over the last four decades.

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.

Bez loves games, to connect with others, the world around her, and even herself.

Best known for Yogi (20+ languages, 300,000 copies sold), she also self-published 16+ totally-different things, designed 30+ games for the ELL deck, and has worked as a professional game developer. She founded the London Friday daytime playtest many years ago, and has recorded more than 1,000 streams.

Eric is owner of Talon Strikes Studios. He is the designer of Talon Strikes Studios' Vinyl and the producer of Cardboard Edison’s Cobras.

Alley Cat Games are one of the largest UK independent board game publishers. With a variety of different games, award winning Euros such as Arborea and best-selling mass market games like Tinderblox, "We Make Fun. For Everyone."

Nate Murray is the Director of Development for Liithos Entertainment and Publisher of Erasmus Fox. He has worked in tabletop gaming for a decade and was a founding member of the IDW Games team.

Jack is the Executive Director and a founder of The Bodhana Group, a 501c3 non-profit based in York, Pennsylvania, that uses tabletop gaming for education, capacity building, and therapy since 2009. They provide direct services as well as training for professionals and the community about how to unlock the power of gaming for international purposes. They also run Save Against Fear, a fundraiser gaming convention in York in November, and consult on game design and specialized programs.

Chad founded 25th Century in 2016 which is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. To date, the company has released 23 games and 2 puzzles, with over 10 new releases planned for 2023. When not playing games, he is an avid comic reader and craft beer enthusiast. And despite the sometimes quite drastic ups and downs, is a diehard Atlanta sports fan. He lives with his wife and their four rescue animals, two dogs and two cats: Toby, Chloe, Peaches, and Alley.

Anne-Marie De Witt is co-owner and co-founder of Fireside Games, which is a casual and adventure board game publisher in operation since 2008. She has been actively involved in the game development, product design, and all business aspects of the games in their line, including their flagship Castle Panic. She has also designed Bears!, Trail Mix’d, Munchkin Panic, and The Village Crone. Anne-Marie is co-designer with Justin De Witt on the upcoming cooperative card game Ultimatch, releasing in June worldwide.

Pat Marino is a game designer and the Director of Hobby Games at The Op. In his current role he evaluates new game titles to strategically plan the hobby game rollout, which includes design, development and a lot of inventor relations. His published designs include Mountains out of Molehills, Cuphead Fast Rolling Dice Game, Express Route, Court of the Dead: Mourners Call, Fire Nation Rising and more. Pat holds a PhD in Leadership Studies and can be found on Instagram and TikTok with the handle @DrPatMakesGames.

Rich has had diverse game design work over the last two decades. He has designed over 30 published or public event games across mediums. From digital audio adventures (Twisted Tales series for Grabbit Entertainment), transformational games for social good organisations (Hohi 1816 tabletop game, End-danger mega game for Four Paws International, etc), games for street festivals, large events, and personal hobby games for tabletop (Award nominees Dirty Little Secrets, Skip Jack, etc).

Rich is a regular speaker at academic and industry conferences on games and gameful learning, recently the Games Based Learning Conference, Play by Play, and the NZ Association of trainers and developers conference.

Finally, in his role at the University of Auckland Rich works in the leadership of the faculty of Creative Arts and Industries to shape teaching and learning strategies and - yes - smoosh in playful design and games.

Matteo has been managing Volpe Giocosa https://www.volpegiocosa.it since 2016, with the aim of spreading the word of hobby board games in Italy.

We are interested both in the strategic aspect and in the educational one, passing through mathematical, social and historical themes.

From the inexperienced player to the more addicted ones, we believe there is a game for everyone.

Corinne Yeager (@CoffeeLghtWght) is a girl mom, plant mom, and game mom. Designing for 9 years. CE judging for 2 years. She has one published game, Exploring Galapagos, by Button Shy. She has many designs at various stages of the process, one of which is her longest design project (created in 2018, a Cardboard Edison submission in 2021) that will hopefully make its way into the world soon! She is always looking for ways in which familiar mechanisms can be inverted or stripped down to their simplest forms. This design ethos has greatly informed her own designs. She loves that relationship building is the primary goal of the board game community and has really come into her own as a designer and developer because of those relationships. Her main goal is to help others find their fit in the industry and help designers avoid snags in their own design processes. She has many tips on designing, testing, developing, attending conventions, and pitching games, so feel free to reach out to her if you want a slew of advice!

Jeff Johnston, Pair of Jacks Games, designs fun family games, ones you'd love to play with your favorite nieces and nephews. He's worked with publishers like Gamewright, Breaking Games, and Education Outdoors

Thomas Hornemann is a New Jersey-based tabletop game designer, avid playtester, writer, and creative editor. He is one of the three owners and founders of Diner State Games. Currently unpublished, he has won a BostonFIG award for his game Gerrymandering.

Federic Benito is one the three owners and founders of Diner State Games.

Matthew Legault is Writer, Translator, and Adaptor at Montreal-based board game publishers Scorpion Masqué and Randolph. He writes rules, he turns French into English, and he tests games to see what makes them go.

Matthew's been in the board game industry for nigh on a decade now; he's done podcasts (as a guest and as a regular contributor), he's dabbled in game design, and he's got friends in game stores all across Canada. This will be his 4th year judging the Cardboard Edison Award. He loves playing guitar and singing, so throw your requests his way, he'd be happy to oblige!

Tim Blank is a staple in the Boston game design scene. He is a Vice President and board member for BostonFIG, the world's largest indie game convention, as well as President of the Game Makers Guild. In addition, he has taught Game Design at both Northeastern University and MIT since 2019. His published games include Oh My Gods!, Bumuntu, and 2022's Yosemite. Aside from board games, Tim also designs Escape Rooms. He has been a judge for the Cardboard Edison Award since 2017.

Ellie is an independent board game designer specialising in mass market family games. She is owner of The Dark Imp, which houses her blog and self-published games. She is author of the book, The Board Game Family: Reclaim your children from the screen. Ellie has games licensed to several publishers including Gamewright, Ginger Fox, Indie Boards and Cards, Quarto, Laurence King, Clarendon Games and Outset Media. She also designs games by commission (within and outside the game industry) and provides consultancy services for new designers.

Recent rewards and recognition include:

- Mojo 100 Most Influential Figures in Toy and Game Design 2024

- Winner of Hasbro Women Innovators of Play Contest 2023

- Cardboard Edison Board Game Design Blog of the Year 2023

- Gold Winner Independent Toy Award 2023

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.

Karl is a part-time engineer / part-time board game designer and developer from Melbourne, Australia. After finishing university in 2014, Karl stumbled across modern board games, and since then has thrown himself deep into the hobby. Since winning the Cardboard Edison Award in 2021, he has 6 signed games, and has led development on many up-and-coming games. In addition to designing and developing, Karl is also the Vice President of the Tabletop Game Designers Australia, a not-for-profit advocating and facilitating Australian tabletop game design development and commercialization; and runs the Incubator [ONLINE] digital playtest group <https://discord.gg/Ycb6vdG>. When not playing with cardboard, Karl enjoys learning from his wife and son, Laura and George.

Award-winning teacher and designer Kathleen Mercury, M.A.T., M.E.T., has been pushing the boundaries of using design thinking to merge game design and instruction from elementary to collegiate levels for over 20 years. Kathleen is a published tabletop game designer (Greece Lightning 2021) with more titles upcoming. She shares all of her game design teaching resources at www.kathleenmercury.com for free, and is a frequent collaborator with nonprofit, education, and industry clients to create interactive, immersive Game-Based Learning experiences.

John du Bois makes games in his spare time. Some of them are good enough that people are willing to pay money for them. These include Avignon: A Clash of Popes from Button Shy Games, Heading Forward from Hollandspiele Games, and previous Cardboard Edison Award finalist Striking Flint, coming out later this year from Hollandspiele Games. As a designer and player, John prefers to seek out emotive and experience-driven games, especially if those experiences are relevant to the designer's own life.

Jessica Spears is a Young Adult Librarian at Brooklyn Public Library. She loves board games, but professionally sets up and runs a lot of video game programming of one sort or another. She helped found the Board Game Library at Brooklyn Public Library, a collection of circulating board games, and runs some sort of game program once or twice a week. Currently she is probably playing Spirit Island and eating pie.

Beanbag Jolly-Amerika - Bean (n): An edible, kidney-shaped seed, borne in the long pods of a leguminous plant. / Bean is an occasional poet, non-practicing architect, youth services & board game librarian, and dad to two small humans. He resides in NYC, and despite what you may have heard, is not actually from Antarctica. His heart is covered in paisleys. He enjoys bright colors, long novels, crossword puzzles, and the company of rabbits.

Lauren is a tenured assistant professor of astronomy and physics at Grand Rapids Community College. She served as co-host of the Playability Podcast for two years, judges several competitions including past Cardboard Edison Awards, playtests with local designer groups and at game conventions, and has designed games of her own (for more info, see cgsunit.com/games).

Manny is the designer of Flamecraft, Sparkle*Kitty and Shadow*Kitty. His design focus is getting new people into the hobby with easy to grasp gameplay coupled with beautiful artwork and humor.

Nicole is the Kickstarter Games Outreach Lead. They have been in the games industry for 15 years and have been designing and developing games for a decade. Their first game, RESISTOR_, had a successful Kickstarter back in 2015. They're also a writer, editor, and avid tabletop and video gamer.

Pam Walls is an independent board game designer based out of Vancouver, Canada. Her published games include Hold That Face, Act Fast Speed Charades, Blob Party and the upcoming Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition). She posts weekly videos about board game design on her award winning Youtube channel.

Chris Chan is an art director who grew up in Rochester, N.Y. He attended New York University and pursued playwriting for a time. Chris began his game design journey while working the late shift in a Greenwich Village chess store. He started exploring non-chess game designs while attending Virginia Commonwealth University for art direction and advertising. Chris' advertising career introduced him to the friends with whom he would co-design his first published game, The Night Cage by Smirk & Dagger Games. That process also introduced Chris to the hobby game community which he's thrilled to be a part of now. When he isn't designing board games, Chris is probably out running or taking photos.

Lottie Hazell is the co-founder of the British publisher Birdwood Games and designer of Dog Park, Dog Park: New Tricks, and Forever Home. She has twice been nominated for Dicebreaker's Rising Star Designer award, winning in 2022. Her games have sold over 80,000 copies and have been translated into over 14 languages.

Edwardo Rodriguez, aka Eddie, is a husband, a father to two boys, and is your friendly neighborhood Jack of all trades Master of none/pin enthusiast over at Breaking Games. He's been a judge for the Cardboard Edison Award for quite a number of years. This year, Eddie will be returning as both a First Round Judge and a Finalist Judge. Eddie is looking forward to seeing what games are coming to the table for 2024.

Dr. Wictz - designer of Robotech: Reconstruction and You Fool. Dr. Wictz also writes a blog on boardgame design at dr.wictz.com

Brote de Juegos (roughly translated as Sprout of Games) is the brand name for the games created by siblings María and Enrique. They are from Sagunto, a sunny coastal and historical Spanish city. Maria works as an architect and graphic designer, and Enrique teaches maths to teenagers. They are members of LUDO, the Spanish association of game authors. Since 2015 they have designed some “18 card games” that they offer as print-and-plays.

Dave Chalker is the award-winning game designer of Get Bit!, Thunder Road: Vendetta, and the Sentinel Comics RPG, and a member of the Unpub Advisory Board. He has over 20 years of game industry experience during which time he's playtested for dozens of companies, and a master's degree in publications. He lives in Maryland with his wife and three cocker spaniels.

Mac is a game designer and editor by avocation and a non-profit tech professional by vocation.

Dave Beck (he/him) is a game designer and owner of Paverson Games, an indie board game publisher located in Wisconsin, creators of Distilled and the forthcoming Luthier. When Dave is not designing games in his basement lair, he is working at the University of Wisconsin-Stout as a Professor of Game Design and the Director and Associate Dean of the School of Art & Design, the largest higher-education art and design program in the Upper Midwest. In his spare time, he loves spending time with his family, even if they don't love to play board games as much as he does.

Kirsten Lunde is a designer and publisher whose classical music-themed engine builder Ovation won the 2023 Pavs Award in New Zealand for Excellence in Physical Games and is being published through her company Looking Glass Workshop. Included among the designs Kirsten is currently working on are Questabell, her winning entry from the 2022 ELL Deck Contest, with Bez Shahriari and an installment for the Holiday Hijinks series with Jasmine Hweh for Grand Gamers Guild. Kirsten also serves as a Moderator for Protospiel Online which she is proud to have done since the very beginning.

Kristy and Jared have been playtesters for over 10 years, having tested games by hundreds of designers including many of their other fellow judges. And as to date, they have been thanked by more designers than they have left crying.

Sean and his brother Rob put together a series of board game instructional/review videos on YouTube called Overly Critical Gamers, usually focusing on obscure titles that didn't get much coverage. Generally being willing to give any game a chance to prove itself based on the merits of its unique mechanics, they feel what they bring to the table as reviewers is the context of being able to compare and reference to similar titles - if you play a lot of games then you develop a sense of what usually works and what doesn't.

During the pandemic, Sean turned his focus to streaming video game content on Twitch, but he still finds the time for the occasional game night where he and his brother will often find themselves discussing the pros and cons of what they're playing and trying to propose potential improvements.

Andy Matthews is the founder of Meeple Mountain (a board game media outlet), as well as a husband, father, board game lover, and software engineer. He is a published author with 4 books to his credit, and over 15 years worth of writing experience. He loves all board games but particularly enjoys light to medium weight games.

Ian Zang has been working in the board game space for over a decade, designing Constellations and Genotype, both Mensa Select winners. He lives in Michigan with his partner, a precocious parrot, and a loony labrador where he is an adjunct professor of game design at Lawrence Tech University.

Tim Rodriguez (they/them) is an award-winning game designer and the co-owner of Galileo Games. Tim is passionate about mentoring game designers and artists and helping coach them to success. Tim is also an avid cyclist, musician, martial artist, and actor.

Kellen Freeman is a librarian and maker from central Ohio who was once told he's too nice for the internet. In the gaming world, he serves on the board of the Unpub organization and designs 3D printed and laser cut game inserts for board games from time to time. You can find him on Mastodon @kellenfreeman@mastodon.world and more information can be found at kellenfreeman.com.

Jim Cohen runs the website WhatBoardGame.com.

Dale holds a master’s degree in digital game theory and design and has applied that knowledge to the field of tabletop gaming. He has developed games for Mythic Games and Thunderworks Games including Roll Player: Fiends and Familiars, Solomon Kane, Reichbusters: Project Vril and Hel: The Last Saga.

His movement from digital to analogue gaming could in part be due to his partner and primary gaming companion, who is blind. The greater tactility of tabletop games allows him to share his passion with greater accessibility. Or at least that’s what he tells himself as he orders an increasing volume of ‘deluxe’ components.

In his spare time, he enjoys creating home-brew expansions as well as providing advice and feedback at his local playtest meetups; of which one published success is FlickFleet by Eurydice Games. He is based in the UK with his partner, two children and black Labrador guide dog who is the real brains behind his work.

Chris is the designer of In Vino Morte and Fast as Lightning, both published by Button Shy Games. He is the host of The Board Game Workshop podcast and its game design contest. He is a member of the Game Makers Guild, Southern Mass Game Designers, and The Indie Game Report. He writes weekly blog posts on game design at BlueCubeBoardGames.com. Chris resides in Massachusetts with his wife, Mary, their dog Buddy, and their three cats, Koshka, Krypton and Argon.

Sarah Shipp is a game designer and freelance theatre technician out of Dallas. She has been designing board games since 2018 and blogging about board game design since 2019.

Mike Bonet is the host of the Who, What, Why game design podcast and the former co-host of the Ninja Vs Pirates Podcast. He's been podcasting off and on for 15 years between both shows. Mike also owns lots of games and generally plays them when he can. He frequently loses to keep things interesting in the game.

Eric Yurko writes and does board game photography for What's Eric Playing?, a board game review website which just celebrated 1,000 reviews! When not doing that, Eric also serves on the American Tabletop Awards Committee, a group of U.S.-based media and content creators working to find and promote great board games released in the U.S. each year. You can find him on Twitter @whatseplaying or on Instagram @whatsericplaying.

Heather is the CEO of 9th Level Games. 9th Level is a small indie game design and publishing house known for blending humor, great mechanics and fun for over 20 years! Heather has designed tabletop board games and roleplaying games including Schrodinger's Cats, Pavlov's Dogs, Meeple Party, and Venture Village! Find out more at 9thlevel.com or follow @9thlevelgames.

David Masnato is a community manager, graphic designer, and co-organizer of Protospiel Online. When he's not making or playing games, David loves to cook, crochet, and listen to music. He's also the proud parent of an enormous orange cat named Baran. His first game, Roux Mates, was the winner of the 2022 Cardboard Edison Award In-Person Track.

Steven Aramini is a game designer and avid fan of all board games. His designs include Sprawlopolis, Circle the Wagons, Yardmaster, Ancient Realm, Groves and Animal Kingdoms (winner of the 2018 Cardboard Edison award), among others. Additionally, Steven is the owner of Write Stuff Games, which recently published its first title Fliptown, of which Steven was also the designer.

Jessica Fisher is a writer and board game fan living in New York City. She is one of the founders of Gameosity a board game news and reviews website as well as the Tabletop Game Jobs Facebook group that has helped many people find their career path in games. When not playing games you can find her swimming with mermaids or cozied up with her cats reading a good book.

Chris Barrows is the creator and co-conductor of Tabletop Express, a YouTube channel focused on live content featuring live interviews and a live call-in show. Based in Northern New Jersey, Chris and the rest of the Tabletop Express team can usually be found annually at PAX Unplugged and cover every mix of games from family-weight to heavy. Chris is also a proud father and husband and enjoys spending time with his family. He is also an active member of his community, where he helps run local campaigns, and is a member of the board of trustees for his local library.

Hana is the youngest member of Cardboard Edison. She is an avid gamer who also loves to read, play soccer, cheer, act and do activities in the gifted and talented program at her school.

LilyAnne has been playing games since she could walk and is a member of Cardboard Edison. She is involved with numerous organizations including Girl Scouts, National Honor Society, Student Council, Literary Magazine and also enjoys playing the bass clarinet, cheerleading, acting, and street hockey.

Chris Zinsli is co-founder of Cardboard Edison. Outside of the gaming industry, he is a journalist working in podcasts.

Suzanne Zinsli is co-founder of Cardboard Edison. She is a board member for Unpub. Suzanne is also very active in her local community, being a Girl Scouts leader, co-coordinator of the elementary school PTO, and VP of the high school PTO.