Our featured designer today is Brian Bollinger of The Wild East Game Company. He is the most rootin tooninist', train loving game designer this side of the Mississippi you will ever meet. If his mustache doesn't prove it his fun games like Lightning Dice and Pie Rats will.

Today’s featured designer is Connor Milliken. Connor is a co-designer of game Masters of the Gridiron, published by Sports Mogul. Connor will also be joining us on May 14th, 2016.

Today our featured board game media guests are three-fourths of the Flip the Table podcast! We have Your Moderator Chris, Professional Wrestling Expert Jared Hunnefeld, and Party Clown Flip Florey, all of whom will be joining us on Saturday for the first Granite Game Summit.They are the Masters of the obscure, and often downright terrible titles from “the other side of gaming”.  If the game requires a VCR, or is about Justin Bieber, you had better believe they have played it and covered it on their show.

Since inventing “The Game of 49,” Mark Corsey has had to quit saying, “Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t make the rules!” In game playing and in general, he plays by the rules; he only dresses like an outlaw.

When we originally set out to hold the first ever Granite Game Summit we knew that we three organizers would be able to more or less manage all aspects of the day without worry. However, since then we have doubled in size and are expecting to sell out(!). With this scope and scale we know that we need some help (That's where you come in).

Our first adventure in the board game convention arena has been amazing. When I first talked with Kimberly and Mike about it we were pretty excited. Our goal was to hopefully have 100 people if we were lucky. But it has become so much more than just gathering a few friends together for a game day. We want to thank everyone who has supported us for the first Granite Game Summit.

Today our featured designer is not one, but all three designers Meg, Dan, and Glenn of Games by Playdate. Games by Playdate design, produce and publish their own games and are based out of Manchester, NH. Games ranging from Slash: a party game where you ‘ship popular characters and create your own fan fic; Pack the Pack: an adventuring, tile laying game; and Hearts Blazing: a card driven story-game where you create an episode of melodramatic sci-fi series over in under 2 hrs. currently on Kickstarter. You can check out Hearts Blazing and play some games with the GbPD crew at Granite Game Summit.

As we get this amazing new board game focused convention off it's feet we look to our founding group for support. You have supported us with ticket purchases yes, but we thirst for more. What better way to cull the over growing collection you have eating up valuable shelf space than to donate so others may enjoy!

Today’s feature is another double feature, this one is a little different though. Today we have Dave Logvin, designer of Vampires & Villagers: The Curse of Cristoph, and Hannah J. Merchant, the art designer and illustrator for the game.

With less than two weeks to go things are really beginning to get exciting! We have 11 designer groups scheduled to show off games over the course of the day. Each of these groups will be showing a game.

Todays featured meda guests are Doug Osterhoudt and Zach Denoncour of the Adjacent Hex podcast. One night they  were sitting around the table playing one of their  favourite board games and started talking about some of the theories behind game creation and what some of the fundamentals of the hobby were.  Frequently in possession of opinions (whether differing or similar) about games and some of the different aspects of the gaming hobby, Doug and Zach leapt into the void with the help of their editor Jodie Wagner of Greater Than Games and the rest is history.  

Thanks to the overwhelming support we are now pleased to announce that we have officially doubled our capacity and ticket availability. We have begun releasing tickets to those on the waitlist today on a first come, first serve basis. Any remaining tickets will be released to the general public tomorrow,  April 30th at noon EST.

Today we have a double feature for you, Matt Golec and Robert Dijkman Dulkes, designers of Penny Press. They are a game design team living in the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire. Their game, Penny Press, won Cards Against Humanity’s Tabletop Deathmatch and was published by Asmadi Games. We are looking forward to having them as guests at Granite Game Summit.

Today’s featured designer is Bobby Fowler, of Space Chase, a not yet published game. He lives in scenic Manchester, NH and is currently raising several young prototype games. He has high hopes that one day they will grow up, get jobs and move out of the house, but is unsure of when that will happen. Bobby enjoys both designing games as well as creating artwork for them. You can see his current games in progress at http://almostagame.com and follow along with the steps of his design process on his blog: http://almostagame.com/blog/.

Today’s featured board game media personality is Matt Evans of Board Game Replay. Matt lives NH with his wife and two awesome kids and works in IT. He was first introduced to board games around 5 years ago when a friend invited him to try Dominion. He immediately fell in love and soon owned everything there was for the game. One day a Google search for "Dominion Dividers" lead him to discover Board Game Geek, and that's when the obsession took hold. A few years later Matt and his friends found themselves spending countless amounts of time talking about games after they'd finishing playing them. Anything from impressions and strategies to particularly exciting moments. They decided it might be interesting to record these discussions and that lead to starting the series. Matt will be joining us in May at Granite Game Summit.

Today’s featured designer is Jeff Johnston, designer of Flashlights and Fireflies, MoonQuake Escape, and Toasted or Roasted. Jeff is retired from the US Air Force and is a game design hobbyist with a day job as a defense contractor.  A family man, he is recently recovering from three children in college during the same year.  He enjoys creating family friendly games, strong in theme that bring everyone to the table for playful interaction.  Available at stores near you, try Toasted or Roasted and Flashlights & Fireflies at your next family game night.  MoonQuake Escape, his latest project, should be available later this summer.  He’ll also be attending our Summit in May.

Today’s featured board game media personality is Anthony Racano, representing the Cardboard Jungle Podcast. He will be joining us at G2S2016, all the way from New York, where he resides. He knows that the fun is worth the drive, which clearly speaks to his heightened intelligence. He is known as a gamer, podcaster, father, husband, fake uncle, and Twitter personality.

Today’s featured designer is Chip Beauvais, designer of the games Smoke and Mirrors and ChromaCubes. He also runs a game on Twitter, A Little Alliteration, which can be found @LitAlliteration. He plays the saxophone, is a father, and encourages supporting creators with Creator Appreciation Day via social media. He’ll also be joining us at Granite Game Summit in May.

Today’s featured Board Game media (and future Granite Game Summit attendee) is Ray Hutchins over at Tales of Cardboard. He creates fictional board game stories, and images that make us laugh every time we see them. Bringing a little extra humor to our board game Twitter feed, daily.

Today’s featured designer is David Miller, of the Mint Tin series of games, a lot of game in a little mint tin.  He is also the owner of Subquark, the company which publishes the Mint Tin series. David is a future attendee at Granite Game Summit. He resides in beautiful Portsmouth, NH, and enjoys spending time with an adorable pug named Artemus.