Matthew Dunstan Reflects on a Full-Time Game Design Career

With so much focus on Gen Con 2026 — and at least one more post about that show still to come — I haven't posted a round-up of game-related items in more than a month. Here's some of what I've seen in passing:

▪️ Designer Carla Horger passed away in January 2025, and in July 2026 her co-designer on many games, husband Jeff Horger, also passed away. I learned this news courtesy of Jay Tummelson at Rio Grande Games, who had published the couple's games 20th Century Limited in 2015 and Orient Express in 2017.

▪️ Designer Matthew Dunstan regularly talks about game design on YouTube, and in August 2026, he reflected on the past five years he's spent as an independent game designer. Interesting thoughts for anyone who has wondered what it takes to make this happen...

▪️ In "Play behind bars" on Boundless Play, Keri Blakinger, an investigative journalist for The Marshall Project, writes about the games folks played during her ten months in jail.

▪️ On Wirecutter, James Austin lists the five games from Gen Con 2026 "we're most excited to test", which is a weird way to express your enthusiasm about something. "Hey, let's out go out tonight and test some ice cream." Please, no.

▪️ Similarly, on Polygon Sam Nelson wrote about "The 10 hottest board games you should play at Gen Con before they sell out", with that post going live on the Wednesday before Gen Con 2026 opened...so the "hottest" terminology feels like sales blather here.

Why should I care what's hot? Why not instead write "The 10 board games you should play at Gen Con before they sell out?" That feels more personal, more direct. That framing would make me feel that the writer is suggesting games based on their taste and their observations, not parroting what everyone else is talking about, so perhaps they would be telling me about a game I would not have heard about otherwise, which makes the recommendation more meaningful in my eyes.

This is my take, of course, based on personal experience that suggests the "wisdom of the crowds" would lead me to acquire games that I would never want to play. To wit...

▪️ The International Gamers Awards (IGA) has announced its longlist of nominees for 2026:

Multiplayer

• The Druids of Edora, by Stefan Feld and alea
• The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, by Matt Leacock and Z-Man Games
• Luthier, by Dave Beck, Abe Burson, and Paverson Games
• Nippon: Zaibatsu, by Nuno Sentieiro, Paulo Soledade, and CrowD Games
• Railway Boom, by Hisashi Hayashi and Arclight Games
• Recall, by Kristian Ostby, Helge Meissner, Anna Wermlund, Kjetil Svendsen, and Alion – by Dr Ø
• Sanctuary, by Mathias Wigge and Feuerland Spiele
• Take Time, by Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothiere, and Libellud
• World Order, by Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou, and Hegemonic Project Games

Two-Player

• Duel for Cardia, by Faouzi Boughida, Mathieu Rivero, and Hans im Glück
• Moytura, by Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson, and Bitewing Games
• Star Wars: Battle of Hoth, by Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot, and Days of Wonder
• Tag Team, by Corentin Lebrat, Gricha German, and Scorpion Masqué
• Vantage, by Jamey Stegmaier and Stonemaier Games
• The White Castle Duel, by Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos, and Devir

Solitaire

• Ace of Spades, by Benjamin Amorin and Devir
• Hercules and the 12 Labors, by Tyler Brown and Envy Born Games
• The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, by Matt Leacock and Z-Man Games
• Vantage, by Jamey Stegmaier and Stonemaier Games

I'm a former IGA member who hasn't voted since (I believe) 2008, and the process works as follows: Each member submits a list of up to ten games for the multiplayer award, with up to five titles being starred, along with lists of up to five games for the other awards, with up to three of each being starred.

Once the longlist is compiled, members have a month to play anything nominated that they hadn't played previously, then they submit a list from 1-x for each award, stopping whenever they don't want to list anything else. In each category, whichever game gets the fewest 1 votes is eliminated, with ties being broken by fewest nominations (with stars counting twice), then any votes toward that game are transferred to whichever game is ranked next on those voters' lists. In this way, ideally you are measuring the collective preferences of the voting pool.

I stopped voting nearly twenty years ago because I could not possibly get and play all of the games that I had not played previously, whether due to lack of time or interest. Looking at the current multiplayer list, for example, I love Take Time (review), enjoy The Druids of Edora (write-up), have played Sanctuary once (not for me), and have not played anything else, with Railway Boom being the only title on the list in which I'm interested. Why would I knock myself out to play seven games, likely at most once, in order to rank them against one another when I'm currently indifferent to the batch? Better that I spend my time playing games that I'm more likely to enjoy.

In the two-player category, I love Tag Team (write-up) and have played nothing else. I'm 0-for-4 in the solitaire category.

In short, the market has dozens, if not hundreds, of games for every taste, so play what you want to play and don't fret about playing only what's "best".