Tyson Mertlich – Game Designer
Projects: Paths: Temple of Ukro’kaah, Rift Shifters expanded universe
Tyson is an avid board gamer and has been playing board games his entire life. He is a loving husband and father who has a passion for the
board game industry and board game design and has been working on his own designs since 2015. Tyson is one of the founders of the GameSmiths play testing service and has been creating and testing prototype board games professionally since 2017. Paths: Temple of Ukro’Kaah will be Tyson’s first published game design, but he hopes it will not be his last!
Adam Bassett – Game Designer
Projects: Paths: Factions
Approximately two years ago, Adam Bassett developed a small card game for fun, intended to be played among friends. Now, it has evolved into something new. We’re calling it Paths: Legends.
Adam has been playing card games for years. From classic games like blackjack and poker to more fantastical ones like Magic: the Gathering and Loveletter. This, plus his graphic design background, lead to the first iteration of Paths: Legends.
Will Esgo – Game Designer
Projects: Rift Shifters
Will Esgro has been a gaming enthusiast for his entire life. His involvement in the modern board game community began with weekend game nights with his co-workers to blow off some steam, and built up into a live stream where he, friends, and family share their gaming experiences with the world. Through conversations with independent designers in the industry, Will caught the game design bug.
Recently, Will began working on his own game designs which led him into the Lore Den of Smunchy (Sean Fallon). Late night musings and cogitations surrounding the worlds Sean is actively creating drew each of them closer to developing integrated, exciting concepts. Upon this realization, Will agreed to partner with Sean in design a living system for The Smunchy Games’ Rift Shifters universe.
Joshua Goodpastor – Game Designer
Projects: Paths: World of Adia RPG
Joshua Goodpastor has been playing RPGs since the age of 7. Starting with a group of friends and their father he slowly grew a passion for storytelling. As years passed he started his first game at the age of 12 and begin to run Dungeons and Dragons. Since then has learned 43 different RPG systems and strives to learn more everyday. Outside of the gaming world Josh is a College Student working to get his Bachelors in Public Relations. Using the skills of his trade he is learning to weave stories inside and outside the world of Fantasy.
Emily Blain – Editor
Projects: Paths: A War Drum of Death, Paths Novella book Series, Rift Shifters Novella book Series, all Paths and Rift Shifters games.
Emily Blain is a detail-oriented perfectionist who gets way more annoyed than she should about errors in supposedly professional publications. She graduated from Luther College in 2012 with a liberal arts education, a music major, and an education minor. Since then, she has worked as an administrative assistant and Communications Director in addition to teaching private music lessons. Since starting a proofreading business in the spring of 2018, Emily has worked on board games, lore, and a novella. In her free time, Emily enjoys playing both board and video games with her husband and friends, where she annoys everyone by pointing out every typo and error she finds. She’s also looking forward to the day when she can play more games than just “Go Away Monster” with her toddler.
You can find more of Emily’s work at https://www.revisedbyemily.com/
Sean Fallon – CEO & Founder
Projects: All
As a child, Sean Fallon was always the dreamer coming up with new stories to tell and games to play. He would spend hours mapping out his worlds, and creating a place where he felt him, his friends, and his family would enjoy being part of. In Sean’s adult life, he decided to take those dreams and push to turn them into a reality.