On May 16, four DigiPen Institute of Technology lecturers will compete for game-playing glory at Mox Boarding House in Bellevue, WA. There, they’ll face off against 19 other teams from companies and organizations in the Seattle-Bellevue area in a tabletop game tournament of wits, skill, and luck called The Gauntlet: Moxtropolis. The prize? The coveted Gauntlet—a trophy to represent the winning team’s victorious efforts and board game expertise.
On Team DigiPen’s road to glory, each participant is tasked with raising as much funding as possible for their team; teams that garner enough donations by game day will receive advantages at the table and increase their odds of winning. To top it off, all money raised during the campaign will go directly to Hopelink, a King County-based aid group that serves homeless and low-income families in the community.
The event was put together by ENGAGE, a charitable giving program composed of volunteer employees from Mox Boarding House and its sister store in Ballard, Card Kingdom. This year’s event is the second annual tournament for The Gauntlet. Last year, groups around the community raised over $20,000 for the local charity group Child’s Play, with local RPG publishing company Paizo Inc. ultimately taking home the trophy.
Click here to donate to Team DigiPen now, or continue reading to learn more about DigiPen’s faculty members participating in the tournament.
The Team
For this year’s tournament, an all-star team of four DigiPen instructors from the Department of Game Software Design and Production will compete for The Gauntlet. Together, these faculty members bring more than 75 years of collective game design and development experience to the competition, proving that DigiPen’s faculty is indeed a force to be reckoned with.
Ellen Beeman
With over 40 video games under her belt, Ellen Beeman is no stranger to the ins and outs of game design and production. Before signing on as a full-time lecturer at DigiPen, Ellen blazed a storied trail through the video game industry, working on such classics as Wing Commander II and taking on production-level roles at such companies as Origin, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft.
Read more about Ellen Beeman’s work at DigiPen here.
Steph Beeman
Steph Beeman is a 25-year veteran of the board game and computer game industries, starting out at Steve Jackson Games, editing the Car Wars line. Shortly thereafter, Steph moved into the computer and video game industry, overseeing such games as Ultima Online and Dawn of War for companies like Origin and Virgin Interactive. Steph is now a Senior Lecturer at DigiPen, teaching networking, computer security, concurrent programming, and software engineering.
Jeremy Holcomb
From his days as a volunteer playtester to his current role as a senior lecturer for DigiPen’s Department of Game Software Design and Production, Jeremy Holcomb has breathed the air of game design for most of his life. He is a credited designer for over 20 board games, including The Duke for Catalyst Game Labs, which earned a Mensa Select award in 2014. Jeremy teaches GAT 210 and GAT 211, and he emphasizes the importance of playtesting to his students.
Read more about Jeremy Holcomb here.
Bill Morrison
Bill Morrison has worked for video game giants like Microsoft and LucasArts, and he is a credited designer for over 10 games including Star Trek: Bridge Commander and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. When he joined DigiPen in 2009, Bill pioneered the DigiPen-Singapore program at DigiPen’s Singapore campus, coming back to the states afterward to teach courses for the Game Software Design and Production department.
Who will reign victorious this year? With your donation to Team DigiPen, you can support a good cause and help DigiPen’s faculty make it to the final rounds of The Gauntlet: Moxtropolis, all with one click.