Deliver a clear, confident pitch to publishers. Learn to highlight strengths, handle questions and feedback, and build relationships with effective networking and professional follow-up.
Description:
You’ve built your pitch materials and now it’s time to use them. This session continues the conversation from Building the Perfect Pitch: Sell Sheets, Videos, & Prototypes by focusing on what happens when you’re actually pitching to a publisher. Learn how to highlight your game’s strengths while respecting time constraints, with real examples of successful pitches and common publisher questions. Danielle shares practical strategies for handling feedback, keeping conversations productive, and adapting in the moment. The session also covers networking and follow-up—how to build industry relationships, maximize convention interactions, and follow up professionally. Whether your pitch leads to next steps or a “not now,” you’ll learn how to turn a single meeting into a potential long-term opportunity.
Topographic maps are key resources for field science and outdoor recreation - let’s bring the fun indoors, too! Demo our classroom/tabletop games that engage players with the real lay of the land.
Description:
Popular and packable for outdoor use, topographic maps depict landscapes in unique detail. Yet their introduction in the classroom is often uninspiring. The games we have developed using these maps are active learning challenges that emphasize terrain visualization skills. We’ll demo some examples and include time to discuss other applications. Scott and Jennifer Rice-Snow host ground4inspiration.net, an online geomorphology resource for GMs, writers, artists, and educators.
Game Accessibility; creating a space where everyone can play!
Summary:
Game Play for All: practical strategies to make tabletop and game-based activities accessible, including game selection, material adaptations, and room design for diverse player needs.
Description:
This inservice explores practical, inclusive strategies for making tabletop and game-based activities accessible to all learners. Participants will learn how to thoughtfully select games, adapt materials, arrange tables, and design room layouts that support diverse sensory, physical, cognitive, and social needs. The presentation blends real-world examples with actionable tips that can be immediately applied in classrooms, therapy spaces, and community settings. Led by a seasoned occupational therapist and a behaviorist who is dual-credentialed in general education and special education (K–12), this session offers a unique, interdisciplinary lens on fostering engagement, participation, and belonging through accessible game play.
Using classic Game Theory models on conflict, trust, ethics, and decision-making, attendees will learn via experiential role-play a series of engaging classroom games.
Description:
Using common, easy-to-find, materials, participants will learn the mechanics and the theory behind numerous Game Theory archetype games. The activities will range from the Prisoner's Dilemma to the Ultimatum Game as well as the Stag Hunt to name but a few. We will also very lightly debrief the mathematics and history that drives the
underlying engines driving the games presented. Applications from Nuclear War to business and ethics will be touched on.
Can games teach intercultural skills? Come play a stereotype label activity and Barnga as you learn about other games that could be used. Perfect for high school and up, adaptable for middle school.
Description:
Can games help teach intercultural lessons and skills? In this workshop, participants will directly participate in two activities that they could do with students, a stereotype labels activity and a game called Barnga. Additionally, participants will learn about other activities and games that have proved useful, such as Sign: A Game About Being Understood. Participants should leave with some games and activities up their sleeve that could be directly used for high school to adults and adjusted for middle school students.
Are games art? How should designers and publishers approach art? Learn how to use art in prototypes and final games. Morgan Dontanville, Chief Creative Officer for Catan, shares practical insights.
Description:
Are games art? How should you think about art as a designer, a publisher? How best to incorporate and approach art for prototypes as well as for your final game? Morgan Dontanville, Chief Creative Officer for Catan, will share practical knowledge on creating your own work of art.
Games as Pedagogy: Using board games as standards-aligned curriculum and assessment tools
Summary:
Games aren’t rewards—they’re pedagogy. Learn how a board game can be built into your curriculum to assess standards through gameplay, reflection, and facilitation using String Theory as an example.
Description:
Many academic standards emphasize process skills such as strategic thinking, collaboration, systems reasoning, and problem solving, skills that are difficult to measure with traditional assessments. This session explores how tabletop games can function as instructional environments where learning becomes visible. Participants will examine how a board game can be intentionally embedded into a unit of instruction, from identifying learning goals to designing facilitation moves that surface evidence of understanding. Using media literacy lessons developed to embed String Theory, a tabletop game created by Tessellation Games, as a case study, the session models how educators can align game mechanics to standards, observe learning in real time, and translate play-based experiences into meaningful cumulative assessment data.
Games that Boost Cognitive Skills and how to Implement them in the Classroom
Summary:
Attendees will learn about cognitive skills and how the differ from knowledge. We will explore how weak cognitive skills can impact Learning and introduce some games that may target these skills.
Description:
This year's presentation will include some previous games along with several new ones. We'll discuss how the games can be modified to be used in a classroom and what audiences are best for each game. Participant will get a chance to play around with the games during the presentation. We will also discuss cognitive skills in detail with an extra deep dive into attention. There will be game giveaways and coupons!
Learn how to host approachable gaming programs to engage your community, including trivia events, puzzle races, and more.
Description:
Games are fantastic for the brain – a way to build both connections with others and strengthen the brain. Too many adults, however, self-identify as “non-gamers”. We’ll discuss a variety of approachable programs to engage your community, including trivia events, puzzle races, and murder mysteries. Learn how to get buy-in from your bosses or stakeholders, how to address accessibility concerns, and potential remedies for funding issues.
How do you offer quality game programs at your library without breaking the bank? Find out how we offer a variety of programs throughout the year without spending too much gold.
Description:
We'll share successful strategies to help you offer fun, exciting TTRPG events with a small budget.