I am Tom Hutchins. I am a visual artist / motion designer / animator and a graduate of Bowling Green State University's animation program and am fast approaching my 25th year working in development of 'Serious Games' for all types of fortune 500 companies.

Hi there, I’m Keba Etzioni! I am a Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) graduate with a degree in Interactive Design and Game Development, and I’ve been working in the development of serious games for fortune 500 companies for 2 years.

The Regional Coordinator for the IGDA Midwest. Runs the IGDA Cincinnati chapter. “I have a background in motion design and animation but have been operating as a Technical Art Team Manager for the past few years working on serious games for Fortune 500 companies.”

Game maker and researcher interested in computer science education, physical computing, and educational games. Computer-supported collaborative learning and sociocultural approaches to online learning communities.

An independent generalist game developer and academic based out of Cleveland. I hold a BFA in Game Design from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and am pursuing an MFA in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University. I've taught game design at a university level for four years, the last two of which were at Kent State. My areas of expertise are prototyping, UI, and accessibility design.

Scott [he/him] is the Principal Engineer for 3D Interactive Development at Sine Nomine Associates, an independent IT engineering company. He holds BSEE and BSCompE degrees from University of Missouri and has worked for Sine Nomine since 2001. 3D development was a natural blend of Scott's experience in industrial control and CAD/CAM systems plus decades as a tabletop GM and as a backstage volunteer for community theatre. His first video game project, released in 2015, was "Rathunas", a five-year DLC-sized mod for "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion". Manual workflows couldn't scale up, so Scott created a relational database to organize dialog lines, quest stages, and voice actors for the mod's 102 fully-voiced characters (over 3500 total dialog lines). At Sine Nomine, Scott creates parametric and procedural engineering applications in Unreal Engine, Blender, and other 3D tools. He also collaborated as a programmer on "Mission: HydroSci", an educational game created by Adroit Studios and has been a guest judge for several of Adroit's annual Game Jams. Scott and his wife, Katherine, live in northeastern Ohio with their three feline companions.

I have over 40 years in the software industry, from scientific computing to visualization research, to computer games and SOA applications. I was a group leader and project leader for several advanced technology projects at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs before taking a Professorship position at The Ohio State University. I also have extensive consulting experience in computer graphics related technologies, including military simulators, flight simulators and computer game technologies. Specialties: graphics programming, multi-threaded applications, computer game technologies, C++, C#/.NET, software engineering, Agile programming, flight simulation, scientific visualization

I am a professional UX designer with over six years of experience. I have worked periodically in the games industry as a game designer for over six years. I am a passionate artist who loves to create. I have presented at GDEX for the past two years.

I'm a programmer and developer who specializes in using Game Engines for Simulations. I've worked for Games, Defense, and the Museum Industry. I also have half a decade of VR experience.

Game Developer from Ohio! I graduated KSU in 2021, and have been working in games ever since. I've been involved with a handful of games that have Demo'd at GDEX in the past, including - Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends, Reed The Robotanist +, and Ra Ra Boom

Max has been developing indie games for about 8 years, releasing pixel art exploration-forward games, including Ocean's Heart and Yarntown. Generally developing solo, he has experience in just about every aspect of bringing a game from your head into players' hands.

10+ years in Unity creating cross-platform projects in both Industry and Games with a large focus on XR technologies. “I worked at AEP as the lead developer creating cross-platform (PC, Android, iOS, WebGL, XR) and collaborative products for the XR Team. I released a game on PS5 and PSVR2 in June 2023 and have been porting it to Quest 2 device (Android).”

D’Arcy Smith is a Professor of Acting and Voice and of The Director of Digital Performance Lab at UC-CCM who specializes in training actors for digital mediums, especially in producing vocally-aggressive combat sounds with minimal impact to physical health. As a videogame voice director and coach he has worked with Riot Games, Ubisoft, 343 Industries, Ninja Theory and other game developers. He is part of the VO Directing Team of KH Casting directing on numerous games and other projects.

Creator of YouTube channel “Entertainment Lives On”. “I am an up-and-coming content creator predominantly on YouTube that makes video essays and reviews about video games and other media as well.”

Lead Research Engineer at Epic Games and the co-creator of Learning Agents, which is a UE plugin for reinforcement and imitation learning. “My dream is that games will be able to have AI characters that have human-like gameplay and decision making.”

Pixel Diamond Games LLC Founder & Idea Guy since 2011 with over 15 games published, over 12 years of iOS and gaming experience including big tech companies like Lyft (read: tech @ scale), and multiple successful startups.

Founder of Tastie Games LLC, a studio making games that players can sink their teeth into. "I have been making games for the last 7 years and as a recent graduate of Miami University's game program, I am making my first big splash in the indie scene with my first game Mole Maiden!"

Program manager for KingsIsle Entertainment. I operate in the production department, and serve as the action person for our studio director ie."I'm in a meeting, figure out how to do the thing." I also get embedded with teams that need extra organization or support. I'm also a working voice actor.

Robert Lauer is a freelance 3D artist, independent developer, and a Game Design and Animation professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Robert loves the power that play has and works to foster this love through his actions as a co-organizer for the Cleveland Game Developers.

Max Roland An Interactive Media Developer for the Design & Technology team at Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s IT Research and Innovation team since 2019, and has 10+ years of professional hobbyist game development. Max has contributed to a number of research studies and clinical innovations relating to the usability of virtual reality-based training and pediatric rehabilitation.