Marcus Cenci
SSU Assistant Professor // Madden NFL // Saints Row // Red Faction
Marcus Cenci has spent 17 + years in the games industry where he’s worked on multiple projects as an Art Director and Lead Artist including the Saints Row and Madden NFL franchises. He’s currently working at Deep Silver Volition focused on External Development as an Outsource Director for the studio’s new unannounced title. Volition is located in Champaign, Illinois, but Marcus works offsite from Columbus, Ohio.
Website: www.marcuscenci.com
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
SSU Assistant Professor // Illustrator / Magic: the Gathering // Art Director / GODS // Artist // Freelance
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme was born on the shores of Brittany (France) at the beginning of the eighties. His artwork evolves at the crossroad of modern and ancient myths and legends, forgotten tales and tragedies. Bastien creates dark and symbolic pictures, blending a contrast of beauty and decadence.
Bastien’s traditional and digital work can be seen in publications and exhibitions worldwide, including the cover of the emblematic Spectrum Fantastic Art book, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, ImagineFX, SFXMagazine, etc
Today, Bastien lives in the USA and works as a freelance artist for companies such as Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, National Geographic, Adobe, Random House, Penguin Books, Harper Collins, Orbit books, Applibot, Riot Games and many others.
His work is represented by the NYC agency Shannon Associates.
Website: www.deharme.com
ross Hersemann
Attorney // Writer // Gamer
Ross is the Founder of Loading Law, a Chicago-based law practice, and provides legal counsel to video game developers and entrepreneurs in the tech sector. Ross is also the Organizer of the Chicago Video Game Law Summit and an Adjunct Professor of Video Game Law at DePaul University. He speaks frequently on hot topics in law and technology. Ross also serves as the Chair of IGDA Chicago, Chair of the CBA YLS Creative Arts Committee, and Vice Chair of the ABA Digital Games and New Media Committee.
Website: https://www.loadinglaw.com/
Nicholas Compton
Lead Artist // Verity Integrated Systems
Nicholas Compton is a graduate of Shawnee State University with 7 years of military experience that ultimately helped drive him towards the Government sector of serious games. This is where he spent the last 5 years helping to create award winning military training applications. Prior to that, he worked 2 years on the commercial title Second Chance Heroes while at Rocket City Studios. He also co-started and runs After Hours : Game Developers, the largest game developer community in Alabama.
Jason Conaway
Co-founder // Exultant Games
Jason Conaway is a Co-founder of Exultant Games, a new game studio working hard on creating something special for strategy-minded players. For more than two decades, Jason Conaway has been a Software Engineer and Technical Director in the video games industry. Jason’s developer credits include engineering roles on more than a dozen blockbuster video games, including League of Legends for Riot Games, Star Wars: The Old Republic for BioWare, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 for EA Los Angeles, Bulletstorm for People Can Fly, Golden Eye: Rogue Agent for EA Los Angeles, Return to Krondor for PyroTechnix, and several titles in the Medal of Honor series for DreamWorks Interactive and Electronic Arts. Jason is also a Senior Instructor at Game-U, where he teaches students how to design, build, and program their own video games using professional tools and methods.
Zac Pierce
Lead Developer // BOMBFEST
Zac Pierce is an independent game developer who specializes in programming, UI/UX, and product management. He's the lead developer on BOMBFEST, a party game set for release in January 2019.
Session Title: Build-A-Boss: Leading Your Own Projects
Session Description: Working independently and being your own boss isn't without its hardships! Join Zac Pierce as he talks through his own experiences as an independent developer, learning time-management and budgeting, leading a small team, and staying motivated.
Website: www.playbombfest.com
Troy Knight
Founder & Chief Executive Officer // BLDG-25
Co-Founder and Co-Chair // East Coast Game Conference
Co-Founder // Triangle Game Initiative
Troy has twenty + years of experience in the gaming, learning and design industries and is an entrepreneur at heart. His work experience roles have grown from an animator, to lead application engineer, head of project management, director of global production and C-Level Leaderships. His experience began in the seminal days of virtual reality in the mid ‘’90s. Troy helped to spin out a company from the Virtus Corporation that focused on creating business applications using gaming engine platforms and Virtual Reality applications. In 2001 he became founder and CEO of a creative and digital agency, Bluemoon Design, which created interactive media, e-learning applications, simulations and serious game platforms. After Bluemoon’s main client expanded their operations, they acquired Bluemoon to run the global productions division. Through the years, Troy saw a gap in the marketplace for experts needed in the industries of learning, design, and gaming. To meet the demand, Troy built a consultative practice for a national consulting firm Vaco that supported those industries in building strategies and team structures with that core expertise. As the practice accelerated, more clients were tapping into the expertise that Troy provided to strategize and create solutions. Troy spun out the division and launched BLDG-25, Inc. in 2015 as a Software and User Experience company creating leading-edge digital strategies leveraging their gaming, learning and design expertise.
Troy has led and served on several boards such as the American Marketing Association, the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technologies Association, North Carolina Contemporary Art Foundation and has served as the industry cluster lead for Wake County Economic Development in gaming. As an advocate for the gaming and immersive learning industries, Troy co-founded the Triangle Gaming Initiative and the annual international East Coast Game Conference, held in Raleigh and now in its tenth year. This influential conference now reaches audiences on a global scale.
In 2011, Troy won the Triangle Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 elite class for up-and-coming entrepreneurial leaders under the age of 40.
Keynote Speaker
Tim Aldridge
Senior Director of Game Mods/UGC // Twitch
Tim Aldridge is the Director of Game Mods/UGC at Twitch, where he is responsible for the game mod platform, CurseForge. Before coming to Twitch, he was the Director of Web for the Curse App and built Gamepedia at Curse. Tim started out modding StarCraft before jumping to Neverwinter Nights, and recently Stardew Valley. His passion is to help developers bring their creations to the world.
Session Title: “Making your Game a Success with Twitch”
Website: https://www.twitch.tv/
George Ziets
Lead Designer // InXile Entertainment
George Ziets has been writing and designing games since 2001. He spent the first part of his career on MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online and D&D Online before running off to make RPGs at Obsidian Entertainment. His favorite Obsidian projects were Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, for which he was the creative lead. More recently, he’s been a stretch goal on a few crowd-funded games, including Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera. He is now a lead designer at InXile Entertainment, working on the latest installment of the post-apocalyptic Wasteland series.
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
Artist // Freelance
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme was born on the shores of Brittany (France) at the beginning of the eighties. His artwork evolves at the crossroad of modern and ancient myths and legends, forgotten tales and tragedies. Bastien creates dark and symbolic pictures, blending a contrast of beauty and decadence.
Bastien’s traditional and digital work can be seen in publications and exhibitions worldwide, including the cover of the emblematic Spectrum Fantastic Art book, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, ImagineFX, SFXMagazine, etc
Today, Bastien lives in the USA and works as a freelance artist for companies such as Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, National Geographic, Adobe, Random House, Penguin Books, Harper Collins, Orbit books, Applibot, Riot Games and many others.
His work is represented by the NYC agency Shannon Associates.
Website: www.deharme.com
Chris Volpe
President & Founder // Multivarious Games
Executive Director & President // GDEX
Founder // Ohio Game Developer Association
Chris Volpe is the co-founder of Multivarious Games, the leading game development company in Columbus, Ohio. The President and Co-Founder of the Ohio Game Developer Association, leading a dynamic team of dedicated individuals to create novel gaming experiences and further the game development industry within Ohio. He is also the Director of Operations for Game-U, an educational company where industry professionals teach kids how to develop video games using industry software, STEM learning techniques and soft skill development. Lastly, Chris is a co-founder of GDEX, the Midwest’s largest gaming expo that brings together people from across the country, to learn, connect, and share, at a Weekend Celebration of Games!
Tom Caprel
Owner / Hyperion Marketing
Tom Caprel is a marketer for games, tech enthusiast, and trained opera singer. In 2013, Tom and his co-founder started a big-data website to analyze virtual markets with the goal helping players get the most out of their time in-game. In 2015, Tom started a dedicated marketing company, Hyperion Marketing, to help small game/software developers show their success to the world. Tom is on the board of IGDA Chicago, and has been the Communications Director and Expo Director at the Video Game Art (VGA) Gallery since February 2016. Tom has been in marketing for 9+ years, and regularly works with Chicago startup incubators.
Website: http://www.hyperionmarketing.co/
Marcus Cenci
Principal Outsource Manager // Deep Silver Volition
Marcus Cenci has spent 17 + years in the games industry where he’s worked on multiple projects as an Art Director and Lead Artist including the Saints Row and Madden NFL franchises. He’s currently working at Deep Silver Volition focused on External Development as an Outsource Director for the studio’s new unannounced title. Volition is located in Champaign, Illinois, but Marcus works offsite from Columbus, Ohio.
Website: www.marcuscenci.com
Nick Rider
Founder / Esports Ohio
Founder of Esports Ohio and Experienced educational director of technology with a passion for teaching and learning. Geek, Educator, Administrator, Outdoorsman and Student Advocate.
Website: http://www.esportsohio.org
Timothy Steiner
Senior // Digital Simulation Engineering
One of Shawnee State University's gaming and simulation program seniors. Tim Steiner is a long time fan of games and programming. He has experience in programming spanning back years before starting his college degree and is currently focusing on gameplay programming and design. He is the lead designer on a space-themed management game called Space Log.
Twitter: @yimmit303
George Ziets
Writer // Designer
George Ziets is a veteran design lead and writer who has been developing games since 2001. He’s worked in well-established settings like the Forgotten Realms, Elder Scrolls, and Fallout... and also helped create entirely new worlds like Pillars of Eternity. He’s spent most of his career working on RPGs and RPG hybrids – the genre he loves best – with credits including Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and the upcoming Wasteland 3.
Website: https://gziets.tumblr.com/
Nicholas Rackley
Vice President / Esports Ohio // Esports Director / Bluffton High School
Nick Rackley is currently a Social Studies teacher at Bluffton High School. He is in his 5th year teaching and 4th year as their Esports Director. Currently he is Vice President of Esports Ohio, under the direction of President Nick Rider. Esports. He currently resides in Pandora, Ohio with his wife Britney and puppy.
Website: http://www.esportsohio.org
Caroline Lakatos
Senior // Digital Simulation Engineering
Senior in the Game & Simulation Arts program at Shawnee State University. Caroline is currently the design lead for the 2019-2020 senior project.
Austin Weary
Jellysmack // Gamology
A senior of Shawnee State University and a Content Creator/Community Manager for Gamology. Austin has multiple years of experience both working on and writing about games and interactive media. Austin is currently serving as the Studio Programmer for 2019-2020 Shawnee State University Senior Project.
Dalton Fox
Game Developer // Software Engineer // Founder / Lightmass Games
Lifelong developer and software engineer making high fidelity gaming experiences, beautiful environments, and industry standard virtual reality simulations.
Currently I work for Boeing Research and Technology on VR / AR Simulations in the aero and defense space.
Website: https://daltonfox.com/
Marisa Hike
Artist // MindForge // Sudden Event Studios // Freelance
Marisa graduated from SSU’s game art program in 2017. After graduating, she continued co-developing BOMBFEST which became a published title since early 2019. Currently, she’s a freelance artist and full time 3D modeler at MindForge. Her specialties include 3D modeling, art direction, and retopology.
Matthew J. Benson
Founder / CEO // eFuse
Matthew is the Founder & CEO of eFuse, a professional hub for Esports & Video Games. In the form of a mobile & web application that validates gamer information and incentivizes professional collaboration in the Esports and Video Game community. eFuse connects gamers, creators, & business professionals with limitless opportunities.
Website: https://efuse.gg/
Mark Stefanowicz
CO-Founder / Lost Boys Interactive // Epic Mickey // NCAA Football
Mark Stefanowicz has been in game development for 22+ years. He has worked on all types of games including Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two, NCAA Football, Madden, numerous children’s games, mobile games, and more. For the past 3 years he has been with Lost Boys Interactive where he is a Co-Founder and Studio Art Director in Madison, Wisconsin. Lost Boys Interactive has worked on Call of Duty Online, Survived By, LOTR, Rune and PUBG as well as their own original IP ZPOC and Neverland. Mark also works in comics and has done work on George R.R. Martins The Hedge Knight, Image Comics and his self-published title Waterdogs.
Website: https://www.markstef.com
Mimi Page
Singer // Songwriter // Composer
Mimi Page is a singer, songwriter, record producer, sound designer and composer. Her cinematic music and ethereal vocals have been featured in a multitude of well-known titles and platforms, including network television shows, video games, film scores, solo albums, and multi-genre artist collaborations. Mimi's music is a transformative and emotionally captivating experience. While her unique sound compliments visual media, it also inspires listeners to go inward and explore the expansiveness of their own imagination.
Website: https://www.mimipage.com/
Jason Conaway
Co-founder / Exultant Games
Jason Conaway is a Co-founder of Exultant Games, a new game studio working hard on creating something special for strategy-minded players. For more than two decades, Jason Conaway has been a Software Engineer and Technical Director in the video games industry. Jason’s developer credits include engineering roles on more than a dozen blockbuster video games, including League of Legends for Riot Games, Star Wars: The Old Republic for BioWare, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 for EA Los Angeles, Bulletstorm for People Can Fly, Golden Eye: Rogue Agent for EA Los Angeles, Return to Krondor for PyroTechnix, and several titles in the Medal of Honor series for DreamWorks Interactive and Electronic Arts. Jason is also a Senior Instructor at Game-U, where he teaches students how to design, build, and program their own video games using professional tools and methods.
Website: http://www.exultantgames.com/
Chris Volpe
President & Founder / Multivarious Games // Executive Director & President / GDEX // Founder / Ohio Game Developer Association
Chris Volpe is the co-founder of Multivarious Games, the leading game development company in Columbus, Ohio. The President and Co-Founder of the Ohio Game Developer Association, leading a dynamic team of dedicated individuals to create novel gaming experiences and further the game development industry within Ohio. He is also the Director of Operations for Game-U, an educational company where industry professionals teach kids how to develop video games using industry software, STEM learning techniques and soft skill development. Lastly, Chris is a co-founder of GDEX, the Midwest’s largest gaming expo that brings together people from across the country, to learn, connect, and share, at a Weekend Celebration of Games!
Derek Lewis
Senior Technical Artist / Insomniac Games
Derek Lewis is a Senior Technical Artist at Insomniac Games. Derek specializes in technical art by building pipelines, tools, and creative solutions that help push the technical bounds of the projects he works on. Creative problem solving and R&D projects are some of Derek’s favorite parts of his daily work in the games industry. With 8 years of experience, Derek has shipped titles across multiple platforms including PlayStation, PC, Oculus, and iOS. Derek is a 2010 Shawnee State alum and currently resides in Pittsboro, NC with his wife Elista and son Boston.
Website: https://insomniac.games/
Paul W. Yost
founder & CTO / Yost Labs, Inc. // SSU Associate Professor / Game Technology
Paul W. Yost is founder and CTO of Yost Labs, Inc. a Portsmouth based company that develops cutting-edge virtual reality, motion-tracking, and tele-presence systems. Paul is also currently an Associate Professor at Shawnee State University where he was the originator of the acclaimed Gaming and Simulation Engineering Technology degree program, which has been consistently ranked among the top Game Programming Engineering and Development degrees nationally. He maintains active roles in high-tech entrepreneurship and in academia and directs all research and development activities at Yost Labs Inc.
Website: https://yostlabs.com/
Rus May
Rus May has taught math and computer science at Morehead State University since 2001. His research interests are in analytic combinatorics of both one and several variables.
He is particularly interested in combinatorial, probabilistic and actuarial problems with generating function solutions.
Gregory Marlowe
Gregory Marlow is an assistant professor at East Tennessee State University and has worked in the animation and video game industry for over thirteen years. He spent nearly five years at Firaxis Games (2K) in Baltimore, MD, working as a character animator for the Civilization and XCOM franchises.
In his free time, he continues to work as a contract animator for various animation and game studios. Some of his published and forthcoming titles include Civilization V, various Civ V expansions and DLCs; XCOM: Enemy Unknown Slingshot DLC; Bioshock Infinite; Civilization VI, The Pathless, and Marvel's Midnight Suns. He lives in East Tennessee with his wonderful wife and their dog, Sadie.
Doug Chatham
Originally from Taylorsville, North Carolina, Doug Chatham received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2000 and has been on the mathematics faculty of Morehead State University since 2001.
He is also the faculty advisor for Morehead State Gaming and the host of "Odd Numbers", a comedy music program broadcast on Morehead State Public Radio.
Jarryd Huntley
Jarryd Huntley is a game developer based out of Cleveland, Ohio. He co-authored the book Game Programming for Artists. Jarryd specializes in game programming, and have helped port console games like Quench, and EarthNight on Switch and PS4. He is currently Lead Programmer on We Are OFK, coming out this year!
Jarryd helps organize a large game development community called the Cleveland Game Developers, and he has participated and help run over a dozen game jams.
His studio Polytundra also works on original titles like Art Club Challenge and #ProjectBigHeart as well.
Jessica Manrow
Jessica Manrow is a Graduate Assistant at Western Kentucky University in the Esports program and is a student in the Educational Leadership Doctoral program. She is a partnered broadcaster on Twitch and has given multiple panels and workshops for industry professionals at TwitchCon, PAX, and NACE.
She is passionate about collegiate esports, creating leadership opportunities, education for everyone about the video game and livestreaming industry, and professional content creation through livestreaming.
Jessica Manrow has experience in coaching esports at the collegiate level through her experience at Western Kentucky University. She has over a decade of experience in community building, fundraising, social media content creation, graphic design, and more.
Colin Rose
Colin Rose is a serial entrepreneur and game enthusiast. Owning businesses several businesses in different industries over the past 14 years. Opening Objective Reality Games LLC with his wife Sara Rose in October 2019 finding a business that fed into his passion of gaming.
Over the last 3 years, Colin and Sara have been fortunate enough to own a successful VR business building partnerships with some of the biggest names in the industry through commercial licensing agreements. The brick-and-mortar VR arcade was shut down due to Covid as many businesses were causing Colin and Sara to pivot, finding new ways to sell their content to the at-home gamer via launching of The AbstractVR, a cloud VR game streaming platform.