Hall of Fame Class of 2023
HOF Inductee - Mark Rosewater Started at Wizards of the Coast in 1995. Published a number of articles in early trade magazines titled Insider Trading, which talked about the process of game design. In 2002 he started a web column called Making Magic, which also talks about game design and has been running for many years. Has run a podcast, Drive to Work, for a number of years, which talks about the history of Magic and interviews individuals who contributed over the years. Has had cards he designed in every set since 1996 to present, with thousands of cards designed and well over a dozen mechanics. Created Magic the Puzzling, a series of play problem puzzles featuring intricate combinations of Magic cards that often required extensive time and dozens of steps to solve. A compilation was published in a book.
HOF Inductee - Jeff Easley Prolific artist. Started at TSR in 1982. Jeff did a large amount of artwork for Dungeons and Dragons, including many of the cover art pieces from the 80s and 90s. Recently he has transitioned to trading card game art, with over 50 Magic card art pieces. He also did work for Gamma World, Battle System, and recently even did work for Hearthstone. Still active doing fantasy art and trading card game art. Unrelated to our field, but he has also done several book covers and even a rock album cover.
HOF Inductee - Martin Wallace Prolific European game designer Known for the Brass and Steam series of games. He ran Treefrog Games for a number of years before going back to being a full time freelance designer. He had a popular entry in the deckbuilder category with Few Acres of Snow. Aside from Brass and Steam, Diskworld: Ankh Morpork and London were among his many hits.
HOF Product Inductee - 1829 Considered the grandfather of “train games” and was one of the first games to introduce a “tech tree” structure into a board game. 1829 came out in 1974 and was designed by Frank Tresham, who passed away in 2019. It is a classic Eurogame, with no luck other than who is the starting player. 1830 came out in 1986 and 1829 was basically retired in place of the new update.
HOF Product Inductee - Cyberpunk Designed by Mike Pondsmith, Cyberpunk featured an unusual combat and advancement system that distinguished it from other RPG entries and the genre brought in a number of new players to the RPG scene. It is maintained a following since its launch in 1988 and recently was adapted to the Cyberpunk 2077 video game in 2020
Rising Star - Mathias Wigge First published game is Ark Nova in 2021, which is currently in the BGG all time list at number 4. Magic the Gathering tournament player. Getting a top game on your first game is an impressive feat, although it seems to be happening more frequently with Gloomhaven, Wingspan, and now Ark Nova in recent years.