SPECIAL GUESTS
RAGECON 2023 will have some great special guests. Stay tuned for more guests as they confirm!
Ben Maddox
An actor of such distinction that Google snorts at you derisively when you enter his name as a search term, Ben Maddox has been losing at hobby board games for years. He has lost in England, Austria and is currently losing in Berlin, Germany.
His primary focus is losing at Euro games but he is just as happy losing at thematic games and even being killed in the first five minutes in some RPGs. He has helmed many projects in the board game world. He was the co-host of The Board Game Hour podcast and founder and creator of The Perfect Information Podcast plus his popular YouTube channel Design Notes with Ben Maddox. Five Games for Doomsday is his first solo project, and he hopes that his willful refusal to make this show a buying guide will be a benefit and not a hindrance.
Henry Audubon
Henry is the designer of PARKS, TRAILS, Space Park, Kingswood, and the upcoming FLOE from Pika Games.
He runs a game observatory at the top of a wizard’s tower in Philadelphia.
Corey Thompson
Corey is part of the Dice Tower Network and runs:
DiceTowerNews.com – written news feed.
DiceTowerNow – weekly news podcast, comes out every Monday
DiceTowerDish.com– interviews with designers over a meal.
He is a retired veterinarian and an ex-neuroscience PhD researcher. Corey’s father was instrumental in computer science in the 1970s, and was world computer chess champion for many years, so he was raised around technology and games. He’s been actively seeking out and playing weird and wonderful games for as long as he can remember.
Grant Lyon
Grant Lyon, a touring professional comedian from Comedy Central, Comics Unleashed, the SyFy Channel, and more, is also a huge board game lover! His comedy album Scheduled Fun Time hit number one on the comedy charts and has made him the featured artist of the month on multiple SiriusXM channels.
He’s performed in 45 states and is recognizable from numerous national TV commercials. In addition, he makes silly review videos about good games with his series Grant’s Game Recs on TikTok and YouTube, and he’s the co-designer of the party game Curmudgeon, published by 25th Century Games. For the first time ever, Grant is putting his 17 years of standup comedy experience into a standup show all about board games. If you’re a gamer, these are jokes for you.
Jonny Pac Cantin
Bio coming soon.
Steven Aramini
Steven Aramini is an avid gamer and game designer who lives right here in Reno. He is the designer/co-designer of Sprawlopolis, Circle the Wagons, Animal Kingdoms, Tricky Tides, Yardmaster, Eternal Palace, Fliptown and more.
Scott Rogers
After discovering that game designers have more fun, Scott Rogers embarked on a 25-year-(and counting) career in games. He has helped design many successful video games including: Pac-Man World, the Maximo series, God of War, the Drawn to Life series, Darksiders and Wa
A former Disney Imagineer, Scott is the author of two books on game design: Level Up! The Guide To Great Video Game Design and Swipe This! The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design. He current passion is tabletop games. He has published Rayguns and Rocketships with IDW Games, Pantone the Game with Cryptozoic Entertainment and the upcoming Diamonds & Dinosaurs with Card Lords.
Scott teaches game design at the University of Southern California’s prestigious school of interactive media and at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. Scott lives just outside Los Angeles with his lovely wife, two children and many, many board games.
Ben Holsclaw
Bio coming soon.
Tucker Smedes
Bio coming soon.