AndoCon is thrilled to host a collection of special guests bringing panels and other events, as well as feature several local game designers who will be bringing their creations for demoing and playtesting in addition to participating in panels.
Sean Patrick Fannon (aka “Big Irish” or SPF) – Brand Manager and Lead Writer/Designer for the Savage Rifts product line for Pinnacle Entertainment – has been professionally involved in tabletop RPGs, computer games, and entertainment for over thirty years. His dozens of projects have included Hero Games’ Champions product line; both West End’s and Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPGs; various World of Darkness books; and the Savage Worlds Epic High Fantasy setting, Shaintar.
Eddy Webb (with a “y,” thank you) is a writer, design consultant, and game and narrative designer for video games and RPGs. He’s worked on over a hundred books and games during his career. He has created unique game universes, such as the world of Pugmire. He’s also partnered with companies to work on established properties like Futurama, Firefly, Red Dwarf, the WWE, and Sherlock Holmes. He’s even won a few awards over the past decade or so. In his spare time, he advocates for more inclusion of people with hearing loss. He can be found at pugsteady.com and eddyfate.com.
James Dawsey has spent his entire life in fantasy worlds. He has been a roleplaying game enthusiast since the mid-1970’s, as well as a fan of comics, movies, and animation that takes him to fantastic worlds where anything is possible. Now he publishes roleplaying games and supplements, as well as writing and (sometimes) illustrating them. He took over Vigilance Press from Chuck Rice in 2011 and publishes over a hundred game supplements under that imprint. Among other projects, Vigilance Press publishes the Tianxia line of supplements for the Fate Core System Roleplaying game, as well as the Rogues, Rivals & Renegades line for Mutants and Masterminds.
James has also written for Green Ronin Publishing, contributing to their DC Adventures line and their Mutants and Masterminds Third Edition line. When he is able to fit it into his schedule, he also runs the Vigilance Press Podcast.
Michael Knight is a native Coloradoan who has been an avid gamer for over 30 years. He cut his gaming teeth on the basics: Clue, Life, and Monopoly, moving on to video games and Role Playing Games, which he still plays religiously to this day. When he moved to Denver, he discovered a whole new world of board games, including Puerto Rico, his first Euro game. His passion and love of gaming has intensified over the years, and has contributed to his vast collection of over 200 games. He spends a great deal of his free time playing these games with friends, both new discoveries and classic favorites. It was during one of these game nights that he decided that creating games of his own would be the next step in his personal gaming evolution. So, taking his very fertile imagination and passion for gaming, he has teamed up with Spyglass to design and crowd-fund games. When he is not working his primary job or spending quality time at home with his girlfriend, Chihuahuas and friends, he is coming up with new ideas for games, or refining those games already in the design process.
Eloy Lasanta is a writer, publisher, and ENnie Award Winning game designer who’s been doing it now for a decade. He’s created such worlds as Apocalypse Prevention, Inc., AMP: Year One, and The Ninja Crusade 2nd Edition, and created a host of his own systems to compliment his games. Likewise, he’s even added his unique voice to other properties like The Firefly RPG, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, or the Baby Bestiary. He loves to talk and run games, and he will be doing BOTH at AndoCon.
Sam Hing Has been a gamer for over 30 years, and has used that experience for the last 8 years to design deadly monsters and bombastic spells for the Pathfinder RPG. He has written almost all of the Monster Menagerie line for Rogue Genius games, and has done freelance design work for Alluria Publishing’s Ennie nominated Cerulean Seas undersea campaign setting, Green Ronin Publishing’s Freeport Bestiary, as well as Headless Hydra Games, Purple Duck Games,and Misfit Studios, and has had several works adapted for 5th Ed. D&D. He has published 35 works to date, and owns a library of over 45 different roleplaying games.
Vincent Baker is a game designer whose passion is to bring fantasy stories to life through cardboard, dice, pen, and paper. He believes tabletop games are a fantastic way to forge friendships and become a happier person.
Vincent started his own company, Vindicated Entertainment LLC, in 2012. He has since published eight products, along with video and written content, and collaborated with dozens of companies and freelancers around the world. His two biggest games are Otherworlds, a future-fantasy roleplaying game with a focus on a streamlined d6 system, which offers quick combat and more player agency over characters; and Spellslingers, a fast-paced card game designed to be the perfect game for veteran gamers to play with casual gamers.
Vincent was nominated Student Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011 by YES Carolina, and in 2016 was made a representative of Anderson’s lead entrepreneurship program. He’s earned several awards dedicated to his time spent educating youth in business, as well as for his writing.
Kevin Lanzing has been designing board games since 2002, when he began inflicting his crude prototypes upon fellow classmates in his high school cafeteria. He is the designer of Tako Judo: The Timeless Sport of Octopus Wrestling, and Flash Point: Fire Rescue (now #39 on BoardGameGeek’s Family games list)
Kevin’s current projects include Conquest of the 5th Dimension (a 4x strategy deckbuilder) and Spyjinks: Dr. Dastardly’s Diabolical Lair (a stealth/action spy adventure).
Jason Stone is a long-time board gamer and designer. In 2012, he launched JASON STONE GAMES with the dice game “St. George’s Gauntlet.” The motto of JASON STONE GAMES is “Games of All Sorts … for All Sorts,” and he hopes to live up to that motto as he develops games running the gamut from light family fare to higher-level board and card games. Jason is currently working on games to be part of a proposed series of railroad games titled “Fallen Flags,” including two with David Lupo.
David A. Lupo is the designer of Addictive Alchemy, and the founder of game publishing company New World Alchemy (newworldalchemy.com). David is a frequent guest at many conventions, podcasts, and other gaming venues. The goal of many of David’s projects include building community, and balancing interesting design choices with unique experiences. Keep an eye out for David’s next game the unique tactical dice/card bidding game Youkai. Fans of Addictive Alchemy will also be happy to know the prequel Aggressive Alchemy will be playable at AndoCon. You may also see the two train games that David is working on with Jason Stone Games. If you are a fan of RPGs ask David about his story telling game Always a Hero.
Marco Leon published “Enter The Shadowside” in 2012, and “Enter The Shadowside: DESTINY” in 2015; a ground-up revamp of the mechanical system to focus even more on the narrative. DESTINY lets players choose when to succeed and when to fail, and is designed to never bog down a good story with math. Marco Leon is the writer of “The Legend of Santavela” (santavela.com) and “The Unnaturals” (theunnaturals.com) among others.
Craig Campbell is a local, indie RPG designer who published his first game, Murders & Acquisitions, through his company, NerdBurger Games, in 2016. As of AndoCon, his second RPG, CAPERS (featuring super-powered 1920s gangsters), is on Kickstarter. He’ll be running demos of that game as well as of Die Laughing (horror-comedy short-play RPG where everyone dies) all weekend. And he’ll be hosting special events, talking the geek talk, and co-hosting a public recording of the NerdBurger Podcast.
Craig has been playing, GMing, and designing all manner of things for tabletop RPGs for two and a half decades. In addition to his own game work, he has contributed to Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Gamma World, Iron Kingdoms, and Heavy Metal Thunder Mouse.
Founded by veteran game enthusiasts, Silly Kid Games believes in preserving the simplicity and camaraderie of traditional game play while upping the ante on a creative level with imaginative storytelling and stunning original art.
At Silly Kid Games they are passionate about playing games, improving them, and creating new ones along the way. They hope to inspire the next generation of game enthusiasts with innovative and exciting products that are entertaining, visually appealing, and easy to play.
A little more than a decade ago, several individuals, life long friends and table top gaming hobbyists all, just finished a rousing adventure of whatever newest edition of what ever game that just came out and held fast their interest. They looked at each other and asked: What’s stopping us from doing this ourselves?
Thus was formed EMPIRE GAMES, a gaming company dedicated to its citizens, and dedicated to providing not only a satisfying game through design but to offer the players a memorable social experience. With games like Alchemy 101, Octoberfest, and their flagship I Drank What? Empire Games biggest joy is seeing people play their games, walk away from their demo table smiling, and talking about them later.
Derek A. Kamal is the owner of Shoreless Skies Publishing. He is a self-published author and has created several of his own RPGs, including The Dig and the recently-Kickstarted Heavy Metal Thunder Mouse.
Chris Miller is an indie game designer from Atlanta, GA. Chris has been a table-top role-player, and Larper since the early 1980’s. He was a former guest liaison for Dragon*Con from 1998-2003. In addition to being an avid gamer, Chris is a historical reenactor, martial artist, paranormal investigator, and ordained minister with an honorary Doctorate in Metaphysics. He enjoys using his extensive practical knowledge to help create realistic game mechanics. In 2017, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Chris Miller Games (CMG) officially published its first tabletop RPG: ANKUR – Kingdom of the gods. This science-fantasy RPG immerses players in a game world based loosely on ancient Sumerian mythology, and the alien astronaut theory.
Ankur – Kingdom of the gods, is a sci-fi tabletop role-playing game based largely on ancient Sumerian mythology. The game takes place on Earth some 25,000 years in our past. In our distant past a species of Alien beings from the planet Nibir, in the farthest reaches of our own solar system, came to Earth to mine gold for the production of Mana. Through genetic manipulation, they created a variety of humanoid slaves to mine the gold. A series of cataclysms, and power struggles set in motion events that will entwine the destinies of these species forever! Prior to the player character’s current timeline, a great flood swept across the land. Since then, many forgotten ruins and ancient alien technologies lay buried, awaiting re-discovery, and exploration. Strange monsters roam the land, remnants of a pre-historic past, all but swept away by the hands of fate. Politics, and treachery are around every corner as alien, and humankind alike struggle to claim their place in this world. It is up to the players to decide the fate of Earth. Prepare to enter a world of pre-historic monsters, flying saucers, swords, and sorcery. Adventure awaits you in ANKUR – Kingdom of the gods!
Fernando Aragon is a lifelong gamer who has spent way too much money since the 5th Grade on games! In 2016, Fernando founded Hungry For More Games, LLC and designed “Steal The Show!” Theatrical Party Card Game which was funded through Kickstarter. Hungry For More Games followed “Steal The Show!” with a standalone expansion, “Steal The Show! Act II”, which was also funded by the gaming community on Kickstarter!
Formed in 2008 under the name “The Game Show Gurus”, American Whammy Productions is a not-for-profit professional organization that designs, creates, operates, and performs various interactive entertainment events for conventions.
Specializing in Game Shows, their highly experienced team of programmers, artists, animators, writers, hosts, announcers, production assistants, researchers and producers have created and developed shows, panels, and programming for a number of regionally and nationally known fan conventions and events focusing and specializing in a variety of genres in popular culture, Japanese culture, Otaku culture, and other various cultures and fandoms.
American Whammy Productions has been producing panels and shows across Florida and the southern and eastern US for the past 10 years! With that much experience, there hardly isn’t a thing that AWP hasn’t done or is certainly planning to do in the near future!
American Whammy Productions strives to provide an entertainment experience that will leave participants and audience members with a lasting impression on both AWP and the host convention/venue/show that they are at, and is proud to have been a part of this community for a long time, and hopes to be hosting game shows and other interactive entertainment for a long time to come!! You can follow then on their Facebook (American Whammy Productions), or on their Youtube, Twitter, and Instagram!
Fertessa Allyse Scott (but you can call her Allyse) is a fresh-out-the-oven game designer. She is an Atlanta native, expressing her creative juce through writing, drawing, photography, and video editing. Growing up as an introverted extrovert, she has always used games as her most beloved method of socialization. It was only fitting that she eventually step into the world of game design. She is the creator of Book of Villainy. You won’t be finding it on shelves just yet, but if you’re interested in being the best villain you can be, find her table, claim your space, AND LET THE GAMES OF EVUHHHHHL BEGIIIINNNNNNNN!!!!
Craig Campbell and Mike Brock will be recording an episode of their NerdBurger podcast on Saturday afternoon (exact time TBA). You can swing by and listen to the nerdy talk and even get on the mic with Craig and Mike to discuss YOUR nerdy/geeky interests. The episode they record will go live at NerdBurgerShow.com shortly after AndoCon. This is your chance to proudly proclaim your nerdiness on the internet.
There will be prizes to be won during the pocdast. While you’re welcome to come and go during the recording, you must be present when the giveaways happen in order to win.
Altered Confusion was founded in 2007 by Charlie Hawkins, in Atlanta, Georgia. A lifetime avid gamer, Charlie wanted to find a way to incorporate his passion for the transformative game industry, his love of the games themselves and his penchant for sharing his views and opinions with other gamers in the developing tight-knit community of gamers via the internet. With the help of several of his friends and colleagues Altered Confusion was born. Altered Confusion is the place for game news, detailed reviews, and witty videos discussing new mega titles as well as small independent studio games and everything in between. Since its earliest days Altered Confusion has made its mark at conventions across the United States. Thousands of buttons and hundreds of t-shirts are worn from Boston Massachusetts to Seattle Washington and many places in between! Altered Confusion’s newest passion is the convention panel scene. The desire for deep honest discussion about the ever-changing game industry keeps Altered Confusion on the move from convention to convention.
I am Ando, and so can you!
AndoCon glasses logo and Viking Cow image by Xavier Jones
