Indianapolis not only serves as the center of the tabletop gaming universe thanks to GenCon, the largest gathering of gamers and game companies in the Americas. It’s also home to some of the people who create those board and card games.
Whether self-publishing or working with established game companies, they do the rigorous work of turning an idea into something strangers can play and enjoy. And their creations go well beyond the roll-dice-and-move-pawns games of yesteryear.
Here are a few Indy game designers to look up in your local game store.
Adam West
Adam West (no, not the one who played Batman) was born in Okinawa, Japan, where his Air Force dad was stationed before moving to Indianapolis. He studied computer science at IUPUI and ended up working at Eli Lilly in research informatics.
West got bitten by the game bug at a young age, drawing mazes on graph paper in elementary school and selling them for a nickel. From there, he began creating games using leftover pieces from other board games. (He still has those early designs.)
From his home in Beech Grove, West enjoys developing tabletop games, as well as computer and iPhone/Android games. His company, CrossCut Games, was named by longtime co-designer and friend Dan Schnake, inspired by a saw in his shed.
“It somehow fit our aesthetic — or so we imagined — of being ‘against the grain,’” he said.
West’s most recent creation is Sudds & Malone, a card management and dice drafting game set in a detective agency run by mice. Alas, due to shipping delays, that one won’t hit stores until January or February.
In the meantime, folks can still get his most successful game, Transmissions. It involves moving a set of shared robots to collect electricity, build pipe connections and otherwise score victory points.
“There’s much sadness and hardship in life and I want to bring simple pleasures back like sitting around a table with friends and family just for fun,” he said.
Kristen Mott
Kristen Mott, an Indy native now living in Westfield, came to board games via the oldest of her three children.
“He wanted to start playing some children’s games before bed. I saw what was happening in his mind as we played,” she said. “He was only six, but he was thinking through his turns, making decisions and learning lots of things.”
That gave Mott the idea to add games to her kids’ homeschool curriculum, so she started designing her own. Then, she and her husband discovered modern board games like Wingspan and Parks, and they never looked back.
Mott’s first self-published game, Dinosaur Exhibit, hit the market in 2022. Since then, she has designed games for several publishers, specializing in family-friendly games about animals. Some of her creations include Sharks and Clownfish Cove in 2023, Insectarium in 2024, and Drakelings in 2025. (Do dragons count as animals? Sure.)
In her most recent creation, Stable Times, players are tasked with guiding horses from the fields to their stable.
But these horses have preferences. Jimmy, an Irish plow horse, scores higher if he is the first in his aisle. Rico, a Belgian warmblood, scores extra points for other jumpers in his row. On your turn, you have the option of swapping a card from the display before placing a horse card in one of the aisles.
Once in their stables, though, the horses can’t be rearranged. And only one type of horse can be in each aisle. Collect two horses of each discipline and at least one complete aisle of three horses, and you can upgrade your stable by flipping the board over to potentially earn more points.
A cool detail: Each of the horses portrayed on the cards is real. Their full bios can be found by scanning a QR code in the rulebook.
Michael Welling
Family was a key reason Castleton-area resident Michael Welling got into game development, too. In 2020, he and partners southeast-siders Tom and Polina McLaughlin created the game company Tone Deaf Bards with a mission of bringing families together through play.
“Family is what started the company,” he said.
Michael played board games with his sons and Tom, then a new father, asked how he knew if the games were good. Tom loathed the idea of his child going to their grandparents’ house and playing Parcheesi. Or worse, Monopoly. (Some game hobbyists detest these staples of the chain store shelves.) The conversation ended with Tom saying, “I bet we could make games that don’t suck.”
Their latest release, Hexed, could be a good fit for folks who lean more toward chess and Chinese checkers than the thematic games Mott, West and DiLisio prefer.
Hexed is an abstract strategy game in which players place domino-like pieces on a shared board, trying to reach the opponent’s foundation tiles. The pieces have icons on them, and if you connect three of the same, you activate a power that can shift, nullify or otherwise impact play.
Like many new games, Hexed raised its production funds through a Kickstarter campaign. Sixty-four initial backers ponied up over $10,000 to make the game a reality.
Each game goes through rigorous playtesting to work out the kinks. That’s where Welling’s sons, now 20 and 15, get involved.
“More recently, my 13-year old stepdaughter plays our games frequently, and is always willing to provide feedback,” he added. “Tom and Polina have four children now, all under the age of 7, but they will be in line to be our next playtesters. It’s in their blood.”
Mike DiLisio
Serious hobby gamers may recognize Mike DiLisio as one of the reviewers for tabletop gaming podcast The Dice Tower. When DiLisio isn’t critiquing games, he also designs them.
An Indiana University graduate who has lived here since the early 2000s, DiLisio was a social studies teacher at Mooresville High School for nearly two decades before leaving to work for The Dice Tower. He lived in Florida for a stretch before relocating to Noblesville during the pandemic lockdown.
His latest game is I Made You a Mixtape, co-designed with Dan Hughes and published by Massive Asterisk.
On each turn, players get three song cards and divide them into two sets – one song in one set and two in the other. Then, they pass those to a neighboring player, who keeps one set and returns the other. All players then add the songs to either side of their cassette board.
Simple? Well, in order to score maximum points, the image of the audio tape on each card has to connect with the ones above and below it. Having more songs of the same genre helps as well. Plus, you have to keep a balance between both sides of your cassette. But as The Rolling Stones sang, you can’t always get what you want — which adds to the challenge.
The games mentioned here can be purchased through their company websites and other online retailers. But game hobbyists always encourage folks to check their friendly local game store first.
Good Games
📍111 S. Meridian St.
Elf ‘N Moon
📍1354 Shelby St.
Family Time Games
📍8796 Michigan Road
Saltire Toys & Games
📍11135 Pendleton Pike
Game Preserve
📍8487 Union Chapel Road
📍1551 E. Stop 12 Road
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Lou Harry is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor. You can reach him at louharrywriter@gmail.com. He also serves as game concierge at the free Game Night Social every Tuesday night from 6-9 p.m. at the Garage Food Hall, 906 Carrollton Ave.
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