2024 Guest Of Honor: The Players Aid
Grant Kleinhenz and Alexander Klein

Richard Launius

Known for creating Arkham Horror, Richard has also brought so many more games to the table: Elder Sign, Defenders of the Realm, Dragon Rampage, Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields Card Game, Ace Detective, Run, Fight or Die! Knights of Legend, and more.

Check out this article written by Hans Scharler. It’s a great summary of Richard and his works.

Richard will be running a couple of games at the show, but he is just here to play and have a good time gaming! Look for him at the table!

Christopher Paul High 

Game Developer & Editor for Catastrophe Games; Game Designer & Developer for Valor Mountain Games

I developed the two recent micro games and created the maps and cover art for Sebastian Bae’s Crisis in Korea. 

My game – Dwarven Rails, will be released in the fall of 2024, and it is my love letter to cube rails games. Get a chance to play it at BGF, and it will be debuting at Origins Game Fair & GenCon First Exposure.

David Thompson

David Thompson is best known for the Undaunted, War Chest, and Valiant Defense series of games. He was the 2021 recipient of the 2021 James F. Dunnigan Design Elegance Award, has won four Golden Geek awards, a Dice Tower award, and has a Spiel des Jahres Recommended title. 

Join him at Buckeye Gamefest to test three of his forthcoming co-designs. 

Brad Shirley & Ellouise Shirley

Mother & Son duo started out in 2017 with a small woodshop for home decor items, but by 2020 their entire production line changed to specialize in wood replacement pieces for some of the most popular games (Catan, Carcassonne, wingspan…). Since then, 95% of their manufactured products became gaming boards & accessories, which they sell through their retail store The Riverside Realm. In 2022, they decided to design & publish their own game, based on their own love for travel: The Blog Master: Exploring Europe. Make sure to snag your tickets to check out their soon-to-be-published game!

Hermann Luttmann

Long-time gamer and game designer. Best known for Dawn of the Zeds, A Most Fearful Sacrifice, At Any Cost, the Blind Swords series, and The Plum Island Horror. 

Ryan Heilman

Ryan Heilman is a designer, developer, and graphic designer best known for Brave Little Belgium, White Eagle Defiant, & Ginormopod 2050 A.D.: Attack of the Giant Bug Monsters. 

Dave Shaw

As an avid gamer for nearly 40 years, most of which are war games, Dave worked for Avalon Hill as a graphic designer and playtester in the last year before being sold to Hasbro (1997-98). He has co-designed three games with Ryan Heilman and currently does freelance work as a playtester, proofreader, and pitchman for Blue Panther LLC.

Wes Crawford

Like many historical gamers, Wes Crawford discovered Avalon Hill and SPI games at an early age. Inspired by these masterpieces, he began designing games for his own pleasure through middle school and high school. During college, Wes replaced his gaming hobby with drumming and later dropped out of graduate school to perform and teach, continuing to do so to this day. Wes remembered his gaming fondly, and between touring and teaching, he attempted to combine his love of game design and music with such creations as his interactive “A Rhythmic Murder Mystery” DVD, “The Rap-Along Game,” and “Rhythmblox.” Finally, around 2018, Wes decided to design games concerning his first love, and history, and now has four games under contract to be published, including “The Pursuit of JW Booth” (co-designed with Ryan Heilman) with Blue Panther, and “Engine Thieves- The Great Locomotive Chase of 1862” with Compass Games. Both games are scheduled for release in late 2024.