Game Chef was an annual American contest for role-playing game designers.
Jason Morningstar submitted The Shab-al-Hiri Roach to the Game Chef 2005 competition, where it was chosen as one of the "Inner Circle" - the group of the nine best games from that year's 28 entrants. [1] : 290 [2]
Morningstar also wrote Durance for the Game Chef 2011 competition. [1] : 304 [3]
With time it evolved into a marketing event which created "national" editions, where small groups of players (generally connected to publishing micro-companies) assigned prizes to friends or game companies for which they worked. [4] Game Chef ended in 2020 due to the low interest demonstrated by the RPG community. Trials to revive it were unsuccessful for the same reason. [5] [6]
Big Huge Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Timonium, Maryland since 2000, known first for real-time strategy games such as Rise of Nations, later for the console RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and more recently for mobile games such as DomiNations and Arcane Showdown. Throughout most of its history the company has been associated with its best-known founder, Brian Reynolds, whose prior career already included work as lead designer of Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, and co-founder of Firaxis Games. The studio's ownership has changed hands several times over the years, and it became briefly defunct in May 2012, but it was revived by Reynolds along with several original alumni and new partners. The company is presently owned by Nexon, and actively runs its mobile titles DomiNations and Arcane Showdown, while continuing to develop new games.
Shigesato Itoi is a Japanese copywriter, essayist, lyricist, game designer, and actor. Itoi is the editor-in-chief of his website and company Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun. He is best known outside Japan for his work on Nintendo's Mother/EarthBound series of games, as well as his self-titled bass fishing video game.
Keith Baker is a game designer and fantasy novel author. In addition to working with Wizards of the Coast on the creation of Eberron, he has also contributed material for Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin Publishing. In 2014, Baker and Jennifer Ellis co-founded the indie tabletop game company Twogether Studios.
The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded to a person, product, publication, company, organization, event or trend – anything related to gaming; second, it does not count popularity or commercial success as a sign of "excellence". The award was first presented in 2001.
Green Ronin Publishing is an American company based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Chris Pramas and Nicole Lindroos, they have published several role-playing game–related products. They won several awards for their games including multiple Origins, ENnie, Pen & Paper, and Inquest Fan Awards.
Role-playing games (RPGs) have developed specialized terminology. This includes both terminology used within RPGs to describe in-game concepts and terminology used to describe RPGs. Role-playing games also have specialized slang and jargon associated with them.
An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the game should just be produced outside a corporate environment. Indie role-playing game designers participate in several development communities and game distribution networks. Indie games also grant their own awards committees.
Bill Slavicsek is a game designer who served as the Director of Roleplaying Design and Development at Wizards of the Coast. He previously worked for West End Games and TSR, Inc., and designed products for Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Alternity, Torg, Paranoia and Ghostbusters.
Bully Pulpit Games, based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is a small publisher of indie role-playing games.
Paizo Inc. is an American role-playing game publishing company based in Redmond, Washington, best known for the tabletop role-playing games Pathfinder and Starfinder. The company's name is derived from the Greek word παίζωpaizō, which means 'I play' or 'to play'. Paizo also runs an online retail store selling role-playing games board games, comic books, toys, clothing, accessories and other products, as well as an Internet forum community.
Timothy Cain is an American video game developer best known as the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of the 1997 computer game Fallout. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
RPG Maker, known in Japan as RPG Tsukūru, is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, Tsukūru, is a pun mixing the Japanese word tsukuru (作る), means "make" or "create", with tsūru (ツール), the Japanese transcription of the English word "tool".
Michael Mearls is a writer and designer of fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) and related fiction. He was the senior manager for the Dungeons & Dragons research and design team. He co-led design for the 5th edition of the game. He also worked on the Castle Ravenloft board game, and various compendium books for 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions Dungeons & Dragons.
Evil Hat Productions is a company that produces role-playing games and other tabletop games. They are best known for the free indie RPG system Fate, Blades in the Dark, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians, all of which have won multiple awards.
The Indie RPG Awards were annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski. The final round of awards was given in 2017.
Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop role playing game design framework developed by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker for the 2010 game Apocalypse World and later adapted for hundreds of other RPGs.
Durance is a science fiction role-playing game by Jason Morningstar, independently published by Bully Pulpit Games, who also released Fiasco. The game was a 2011 entry on the annual Game Chef game design competition, and went on to raise $27,458 of its $5000 goal on kickstarter in June 2012.
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a role-playing game by Jason Morningstar, independently published by Bully Pulpit Games.
Jason Morningstar is an American indie role-playing game designer, publishing mostly through Bully Pulpit Games. Morningstar's games often lack a game master and are often set in situations that quickly go unfortunately for the player characters. Grey Ranks, for example, is about doomed child soldiers in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and Fiasco is about impulsive crooks pulling heists that are sure to go terribly wrong. With these two games, Morningstar became the only named person to have won the Diana Jones award twice as of 2023. Morningstar also works with academia and industry, consulting on using games for teaching and learning in education, with a focus on health sciences.
Mario & Luigi is a series of role-playing video games developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the latter's various video game handheld consoles. The series is a spin-off from Nintendo's trademark Super Mario series, and stars the titular characters Mario and Luigi. The games' stories follow the two on a quest to defeat an antagonist, primarily Bowser. It began in 2003 on the Game Boy Advance with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, with the latest original installment being Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam in 2015 for the Nintendo 3DS. Two other titles in the series, including Superstar Saga, had an additional remake for the Nintendo 3DS. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey was the last game in the series before AlphaDream declared bankruptcy in 2019, and remains the latest installment in the series.