You’ve learned about Canadian board game designers and game designers from Edmonton, so let’s move a little south and look at some talented game designers from Calgary! Calgary may have a smaller board game cafe scene than Edmonton, but we still have a very talented bunch of game designers living right here! 

Gord on vacation at Vancouver Island. (Source: Gordon Hamilton)

The Hexagon Calgary staff are pretty familiar with one board game designer who regularly comes into Hexagon to play games with family or friends – Gordon Hamilton (MMath, PhD), a.k.a. “Gord!”. If you come into Hexagon as a group of two and asked for a game recommendation, chances are high that you were recommended Santorini. This two-player abstract strategy game is Gord’s most popular game. In this game, you act as Greek gods building the city of Santorini. As you do so, you must climb the buildings in an effort to make it to the top of one of the towers. Santorini was launched in April 2016 with the largest ever Kickstarter for a themed strategy game ($700,000). Other games that Gord! has designed are 12 Days To Christmas, Calculus, and King’s Kilt. Learn more about Gordon Hamilton at mathpickle.com.

You can find many Calgary game designers through Calgary-based board game publisher Roxley Game Laboratory. Below are a few of Roxley game designers with some popular titles that you may have played!

  • Signed copy of Steampunk Rally at Hexagon Calgary
  • Steampunk Rally

One of the game designers that I have personally met and had the chance to hang out with is Orin Bishop. Orin is the game designer of Steampunk Rally, released in 2015. Steampunk Rally is a steampunk dice drafting game where you build a wicked ship tol get you to the finish line the fastest. Orin was a great person to sit down and chat with, and I even had the chance to playtest his newest game, Dino Kings, set to release in 2020. Dino Kings is a tower defense game where you play cards to protect the kingdom from dinosaurs. I can’t wait to play the full version!

  • Brass: Birmingham
  • Signed copy of Super Motherload at Hexagon Calgary

Our last, but absolutely not least, featured game designers seem to be a dynamic duo of sorts as they have worked on many games together. These gentlemen are Gavan Brown and Matt Tolman. The biggest and newest game that has come out from this duo is Brass: Birmingham. The original game, Brass (2007), was originally designed by Martin Wallace and has recently been remastered into two games, Brass: Birmingham and Brass: Lancashire. Gavan and Matt are two of the masterminds behind the rerelease of Brass: Birmingham, a competitive resource management game set in London during the Industrial Revolution. They have also collaborated on Super Motherload and Don’t Push Your Luck.

These game masters have also done plenty on their own! 

Gavan Brown designed Jab: Realtime Boxing and can also be currently found (at the time of writing) on Kickstarter with Dice Throne Adventures & Season One: Rerolled set to release in 2020. (Fun fact – Dice Throne’s How To Play video was shot at Hexagon Calgary! See the video here.)

Matt Tolman designed Sails To Steam and Undermining.

You can try most of these games at Hexagon Calgary and be a part of the board game design process – the actual playing! Who knows? Maybe you’ll run into one of these talented designers while you are sipping on a coffee and playing one of their games!