Speakers

Carrie is an award-winning narrator and voice actor who has voiced characters in games like King Arthur Legion IX, The Operator, and Stream or Die.

Blayde Gilley is a professional 3D Environment Artist at Lost Boys Interactive.

With more than 15 years of high-profile experience across film, gaming, and VR/AR games and simulations, Mark is a seasoned and versatile designer in the 3D space.

Jaron R. M. Johnson is a game designer with a narrative focus experienced in both tabletop and video game design.

Conner Rush is a 24-year-old solo game developer from West Virginia and founder of the independent game studio FYRE Games.

Kory is a multilingual developer with a passion for clean code, mathematics, and video game development.

Henry is an explorer, experimenter, and active creator in many mediums. Henry has been a working artist since 1999 and has been in the video game industry since 2006.

Sam Bushman has been working in games for over 12 years. After he graduated from SSU he found himself applying his education to research projects, indie game development, online RPGs, and even Magic the Gathering!

Zach Inks earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Digital Production Arts from Clemson University and has taught higher education animation and drawing courses.

Nick is a current game programmer at GhostJam Games working to release the game Backseat Drivers and has worked on the titles Scrap Age VR, Scrap Age Survivors, and Vail VR.

A.J. Fulco is the founder and creative director of Tastie Games, an indie studio based in the Midwest dedicated to making games you can sink your teeth into.

Marcus Cenci has spent 17 + years in the games industry where he’s worked on multiple projects as an Art Director and Lead Artist including the Saints Row and Madden NFL franchises. He’s currently working at Lost Boys Interactive as the Studio Art Director.

Nicholas Harris is a fun loving, Game Programming sophomore and Computer Engineering Technology dual major at Shawnee State.

Dustin Simpkins is a recent graduate from the Digital Simulation and Gaming Engineering Technology program. Now working as a Doctoral Research Assistant for the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Ohio University.

Michael Reynolds is an Illustrator and Concept artist based in Columbus, Ohio. His work showcases themes involving punchy colors, force, and intensity within semi-grounded Sci-fi settings.

Lily Gresham is a 3D character and creature artist who graduated from Shawnee State University in 2022 with a Bachelor's in Game & Simulation Arts and from East Tennessee State University in 2025 with a Master's in Digital Media.

Saritdikhun Somasa, also known as Sarit, has a solid educational background in Art Education, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Design and a Master of Fine Arts in Multimedia Design.

Dalton Chutes is a self-described overly passionate game developer. In his spare time, he likes to research games, prototype games, and post copious amounts of memes.

George Ziets has been a narrative designer and writer since 2001. He spent the first part of his career on MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online and D&D Online before running off to make more traditional RPGs.