Celia Pearce

- PLAYABLE THEATRE -

Celia Pearce is an award-winning game designer, artist, curator, author, teacher, and serial instigator. She co-founder and of IndieCade and the Playable Theatre Project, and currently holds a position as Associate Professor of Game Design at Northeastern University, where she has created games with student teams under the mantle of Paidia Studios and Pins&Needles. Her games have been featured at Come Out & Play, Different Games, Incubate, Smithsonian Indie Arcade, and BostonFIG Fest, where her game eBee (designed with Gillian Smith, Jeanie Choi and Isabella Carlsson) received the 2016 award for most Innovative Tabletop Game. Her books include Communities of Play (The MIT Press 2009) and IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independence (ETC/CMU Press 2020), and she has authored/co-authored/edited numerous papers and book chapters as well as two other books. Her current research and creative practice builds on her pre-academia career as an experience designer for theme parks and is focused on the intersection between game design, live action roleplaying and theatre. Her performative and live action works have appeared at Living Games A Week in Boston, and The Night Cafe, a collection of live pieces around the heme of insomnia co-created by Kellian Pletcher-Adams and Lizzie Stark. She is a Higher Education Video Game Association (HEVGA) Fellow and was included in Game Advocacy's "50 Over 50 Most Influential people in the Game Industry" in 2018.

Debra Everett-Lane

- BIG GAMES -

Debra Everett-Lane is an expert content, interactive experience, and program designer who combines extensive design and education skills with fluency in the most innovative, effective audience-engagement strategies and techniques. She designs for audiences of all ages, across multiple platforms, specializing in experiences that enable audiences to discover, learn, share, and have fun. She is currently Associate Director of Gilder Exhibit Content at the American Museum of Natural History, where she develops exhibits and experiences for the new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation (completion expected 2022). She is also one of the producers and lead designers of the Come Out & Play Festival, which believes in the power of play for activating public space and bringing people together (when there isn't a pandemic).

Tatiana Vilela dos Santos

- ALTERNATIVE CONTROLLERS -

Tatiana Vilela dos Santos is a multi-award winning independent game designer and artist based in Paris, France. She makes experimental games based on new technologies and hand-made interfaces through her multimedia project, MechBird. Her goal is to explore the uncharted territories of playfulness.

Alistair Aitcheson

- ALTERNATIVE CONTROLLERS -

Alistair Aitcheson is a British indie developer who specialises in playful installations, custom-made game hardware, and interactive performances. He sees his games as a springboard for real-world social interaction, and loves to encourage players to bend rules and make the technology their own.

Alistair is the creator and host of The Incredible Playable Show, an interactive stage show which has been performed across the UK, Europe and the USA. His work has been nominated for awards at A MAZE and Alt.Ctrl.GDC, and won awards at the IndieCade Festival in 2015 and 2017.