A game designer is a person who invents games at the conceptual level. Outstanding board game designers are recognized annually by awards such as the Spiel des Jahres and the As d'Or. The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, a division of the Game Manufacturers Association, inducts outstanding individuals into the Hall of Fame.

Board game designers

Card game designers

Crossword designers

Crossword designers are also known as crossword compilers, cruciverbalists, crossword writers, crossword constructors, or crossword setters.

Paper-and-pencil game designers

The following game designers work on paper-and-pencil games other than crosswords. These games can be played solely with paper and pencils (or other writing implements), usually without erasing.

{| class="wikitable sticky-header sortable"

!Designer

!Notable work

!Honors

!

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|Richard Bartle

|Spellbinder

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|John Horton Conway

|Sprouts', Hackenbush, and Conway's Game of Life

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|Howard Garns

|designer of the modern Sudoku puzzle

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|Wayne Gould

|designer of Sudoku puzzles

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|Piet Hein

|Hex (aka Polygon)

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|David L. Hoyt

|designer of Jumble word puzzles for Tribune Content Agency

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|Shing Yin Khor

|Field Guide to Memory

|IndieCade Award

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|Jeff Knurek

|designer of Jumble word puzzles for Tribune Content Agency

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|Tetsuya Miyamoto

|KenKen

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|Martin Naydel

|Jumble (Scramble)

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|Pedro Ocón de Oro

|creator of word search puzzles, hieroglyph puzzles for ABC and Blanco y Negro, and developer of the transfusion of letters in puzzles, often using the pseudonym Ocón de Oro

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|Mike Paterson

|Sprouts

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|Sid Sackson

|Patterns II

|Hall of Fame

|

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| rowspan="2" |Jeeyon Shim

| rowspan="2" |Field Guide to Memory

|Diana Jones Emerging Designer

| rowspan="2" |

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|IndieCade Award

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|Will Shortz

|developed the current form of Ditloid

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| Leonard Stern

|Mad Libs

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| Some notable players include George Gomez, Pat Lawlor, and Steve Ritchie.

Role playing game designers

Video game designers

Some of the most infuencial video game designers are discussed in a books series by Bloomsbury Publishing including Todd Howard, Keiji Inafune, Eugene Jarvis, Jane Jensen, Hideo Kojima, Brenda Laurel, and Shigeru Miyamoto. Ralph H. Baer is notable as an invotor of video games, designing the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system.

See also

  • Going Cardboard
  • History of games
  • List of indie game developers

References

  • Game: The Italian Journal of Game Studies
  • Games and Culture