2025 Guests of Honour
Bill Benham
Bill Benham started playing Dungeons & Dragons as a kid and knew he would make games one day. “One Day” was the summer of 2018 when he joined the Wizards of the Coast as a producer for D&D. Before joining Wizards, Bill served 20 years in the Army, earned a master’s in healthcare administration, and was a clinic manager in the public sector. Besides work, he fills his days finding new games, searching for new places to eat in Seattle, WA, and watching horror movies with his loyal French bulldog, Kizzy.
Sharang Biswas
Sharang Biswas has won two IGDN awards, four Ennie Awards, an IndieCade award, and a Golden Cobra award for roleplaying games. He has showcased interactive works at institutions such as The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, the Toronto Reference Library, and The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. He has worked on games such as "Avatar: Legends", "Pathfinder", "Vampire: The Masquerade", "Spire: The City Must Fall", "Moonlight on Roseville Beach", "Jiangshi: Blood on the Banquet Hall", and "Dungeons & Dragons Live", as well as boardgames including "Holi: Festival of Color", "Mad Science Foundation" and "Sea of Legends". His fiction and poetry has appeared in Lightspeed, Augur, Strange Horizons, and more. He is the co-editor of "Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games" (Pelgrane Press). Sharang currently teaches games at the NYU Game Center and Fordham University.
Erica Bouyouris
Breakout is thrilled to welcome Erica Bouyouris, the Design Lead for Spin Master Games, as a Guest of Honour to this year's con. Erica has designed over 25 games based on movies and IPs; such as the newly released Arizona Iced Tea game, Wicked the Game, and the Dumb Ways to Die card game (which earned a nomination for both Game Designer of the Year for the Play Creators Awards and as Adult Toy of the Year at the Toy of the Year Awards 2023). Erica is also a co-designer on games such as Bosk and the Mensa Select award winning game, Kodama 3D. Occasionally, she also does development work such as Disney's Robin Hood Sheriff of Nottingham. Erica is the co-host of the long running podcast Ludology, a podcast all about games, game design and the gaming industry.
Industry Guests
Aaron Lim
Aaron Lim is a tabletop gamemaker, occasional games educator, and community organizer based in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. He's made storygames like An Altogether Different River and Spectres of Brocken. Aaron is an avid proponent of the art of the trashpost game, and runs the fortnightly playtesting meetup Playtest Zero.
Ava Islam
Ava Islam is a fool, a wretch, a rogue, and a rapscallion. You can read the ravings of her brain worms on her blog (permacrandam.blogspot.com) or check out her game, Errant.
Bill Murphy
Bill, part owner and the Lead Creative at BSGames, began his career by helping establish the Canadian HQ for Games Workshop, where he formed a lasting friendship with Scott Kelly. After years in the gaming industry, Bill transitioned into a full-time graphics career, working with notable brands Tommy Hilfiger, Xbox, Molson, Sears, and Mike Weir Golf. His talents soon led him to a role in newspapers, where he redesigned movie ads across Canada and further honed his graphic design skills at The Mississauga News.
Throughout his career, Bill continued to nurture his passion for creativity through his company Purple Alien Illustration and Graphic Design. Here, he combined his expertise in design to solve creative challenges for various clients. Despite his success in the graphic design world, Bill never lost his passion for games. Teaming up with Scott for several years, they both are channelling their passions into BSGames, where the two now work to bring their innovative game ideas to life.
Cassandra MacDonald
Cassandra is a perpetual storyteller with a love for indie RPGs weird and unique. They were inducted into the cult of D&D at an age most would consider "too young", and are best known for their breakout DM's Guild title Skullport: Shadow of Waterdeep, as well as their work on ENWorld's Level Up and MCDM's Flee Mortals and upcoming Draw Steel. They've been tinkering and homebrewing for over a decade now, and Must Be Stopped™. If you'd like to try, they can be challenged on Bluesky @theicequeer.
Chris Sellers
Chris Sellers is a designer and publisher who makes games to help you envision the world you want to live in. They made the best-selling game Raccoon Sky Pirates, about chaos and trash, and they hope to playtest the Toronto expansion at Breakout Con. They’re also showcasing the queer sword-and-sorcery adventure-romance Defy the Gods. In it, you confront jealous gods and cruel authorities while exploring your emotional entanglements with each other and spiraling upward toward your most glorious, monstrous self.
Chris Tung
Chris Tung is one half of the lifestyle brand Pink City. Founded alongside his brother Mike, Pink City specializes in anime/gaming inspired streetwear - with a strong love for TTRPGs, they have hosted various Dungeons & Dragons charity streams throughout the past three years. Chris Tung is also the award-winning producer/editor/current GM for the comedy TTRPG podcast Super Journey Dudes, and runs the world’s highest production Lancer show called Blink Space Blues. He is known for his wacky homebrewed concepts (including a popular Pokémon themed D&D campaign) and enjoys injecting stories with humour and heart as both a GM and a player. Find him online @lil_tungsta.
Christian Malleck
Christian Malleck is a small-time game designer from Ontario, Canada. His goal is to create games that do something no other games do, either through unique mechanics or concepts. He loves roleplaying games that are cinematic, or a bit silly, so that's what he typically makes. He sells his games as a means to fund the next game he's designing, or to buy other indie games.
Christopher Chung
Chris is the designer of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, Spell Smashers, and soon to be released My Little Pony: Festival of Lanterns. Sometimes a tutor, but always a tutee, and will always make room for cheesecake when there is none left.
David Van Drunen
David Van Drunen loves bringing people together with "fun"! For over a decade, David has been designing and developing board games that connect people around the shared feeling of "Wouldn’t it be cool if...?”
By mixing the familiar with the unexpected David creates wonderful new games inspired by their Dutch heritage, childhood toys, and nature.
(Design: Block and Key. Gnomes at Midnight. || Develop: The Wolves. The Networks.)
Derek Chung
Derek is an easy-going, globe-trotting mental health professional by day and an award-winning game designer by night.
While he got into game development the usual way—a steady diet of geek media and anime, a hatred of sleep, and way, way too much beer—his background in psychotherapy is what reinforced his love of shared worlds and co-operative storytelling. Seeing and experiencing the similarities between therapy and gaming, Derek now marries the two, and is one of the pioneers in the young field of therapeutic gaming that attempts to make psychological health more inclusive, available, and most-importantly, fun, for everyone.
Derek Gour
Derek is a Toronto-based indie game developer who designs both tabletop and computer games. Creator of the card-based story game Hope Inhumanity, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2025, Derek thinks of game design as crafting memorable experiences for players. His influences range from roleplaying classics like Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World to computer strategy gems like Civilization and Crusader Kings. You can keep up with Derek’s latest game design adventures on his YouTube channel, Dandy Barbarian.
Dora Rogers
Dora Rogers (she/her) is a writer and game designer in Montreal, QC. Her work is interested in domesticity, intimacy, flirtation, femininity, and being gay as hell. She designed Sapphic Slumber Party and Drink My Sweat, and co-designed the Indie Groundbreaker-nominated Alchemistresses with Allison Cole. She has also written about queerness in Magic: The Gathering at Hipsters of the Coast.
Dwight Wade
Dwight aka The Big Bearded Nerd, is a Michigan based stream producer, project manager and mini painter. As 1/2 of Mini Terrain Domain, Dwight has produced several charity streams including Legends of Eleanora and Jasper's Game Day. Dwight also produces an ever growing pile of unpainted minis, but let's not talk about that.
Elliot Davis
Elliot Davis, aka "moreblueberries", is a Brooklyn-based game designer, podcaster, and artist who loves all things weird and wonderful about the TTRPG industry. He is known for such releases as Project ECCO, Rom Com Drama Bomb, and the upcoming The Time We Have. When he's not losing sleep over a new game idea you can hear him play, host, GM, and more on the podcasts My First Dungeon and Talk of the Table which he produces as part of the Many Sided Media team.
Emiel Boven
Emiel Boven is a game designer and artist from the Netherlands. You might know him from his work on DURF or the science-fantasy zines series, The Electrum Archive, which he creates together with Ava Islam. Due to Emiel's talent for switching effortlessly between design, art, and writing, there is a good chance you have seen some of his work in any of the indie RPGs that have come out in the last few years.
Felix Isaacs
Felix Isaacs is the ENNIE award-winning writer and designer of the Wildsea and Pico, and spends as much time as possible on balconies.
Gio Manning
Misael "Gio" Manning is a freelance concept artist and illustrator focused on mechanical design. He has worked in concept art for indie games such as Pizza Titan Ultra and mobile games such as Fallout Shelter. He has illustrated for Iron Widow, Cyberpunk Red, Into the Motherlands, and Maharlika RPG. His newest illustration project, for Gehenna Gaming, Eldritch Automata is coming out soon.
Greg Leatherman
Greg Leatherman (he/him) graduated with a degree in Theater Arts and he’s put all those skills into bringing characters to life in his favorite pastime playing Tabletop RPGs on his actual play podcast Very Random Encounters and off the mic. He has self-published his own award-winning RPG called Glitter Hearts in 2020 and has published his second TTRPG called The Mystery Business. He is working on his third TTRPG that should kickstart soon.
James Kerr
James Kerr is a publisher, Indie Groundbreaker nominated table-top RPG designer, and arcade champ from rural Ontario. He runs Radio James Games, a publishing house of weirdo gonzo indie games, and is the Membership Coordinator for the Indie Games Developer Network (IGDN), where he champions other folks' weirdo gonzo indie games.
Jean Luc Lariviere-Lacombe
Jean Luc Lariviere-Lacombe of The Dungeon's Key is a Canadian indie tabletop role-playing game author and publisher. He is also proudly the president of the Indie Game Developer Network, an international trade organization that champions diverse voices in the game development community. He is best known for his Mörk Borg supplements, Kavlov's Sanctuary and Dwellers of the Bog, and his latest game, Dirtbags!, is in the final stages of development and will be showcased at Breakout this year.
Jex Thomas
Jex Thomas (they/them) is a part-time writer, game designer, and founder of Last Pine Press. In their other life, they work in mental health and help parent a dungeon goblin. Their interests include fiction first roleplaying games, labor history, sci fi and horror, loud music, and cats (even though they are allergic). They used to play in bands but feel too old for that now. In a past life, they studied creative writing with a focus on poetry and short fiction.
Joe Slack
Joe Slack is a board game designer, publisher, developer, instructor, and the author of the #1 international best-selling book, The Board Game Designer's Guide, along with 4 other books on game design. He has taught Game Design and Development at Wilfrid Laurier University and runs the Board Game Design Course, an online course for new game designers. Joe has 9 published games and has raised over $200,000 Canadian on 4 successful Kickstarter campaigns.
Julian Frid
Julian Frid is an improvisor, teacher and game designer. He is a founder of the Canadian TTRPG 'Sine' as well as Toronto Comedy darlings Sex T Rex. Sine is currently a podcast and also in the works of being Kickstarted in 2025. Julian is a huge fan of how RP promotes organic atypical storytelling and would love to talk to you about how your favourite system does the same.
Julien Legault
Julien is a designer focusing on roleplaying games. Their work is shaped by a passion for clear, evocative design, a background in fine arts and music, a love of nature, and a fascination with the psychology of play. They publish games under Starlight Grove, a label founded in 2022 with fellow Toronto designer Ryan Khan. Starlight Grove celebrates original storytelling, creating games that range from short and lighthearted to deep and emotional, focusing on exploring the many ways humans connect with one another. Julien's perspective is deeply informed by their life experiences—growing up as a queer, nonbinary person in a small town, living in a time of ever-increasing conflict and polarization, witnessing the seasons change on the shores of Lake Huron, and navigating life as an artist in an era of social media and late-stage capitalism. Their next game, Memoria, explores how we remember our lives and those of others through epic journeys.
Ken Lowery
Ken Lowery is a game designer based in San Antonio, TX, publishing under the name Bannerless Games. He primarily creates solo games such as the ENNIE-winning VOID 1680 AM, Lighthouse at the End of the World, and No-Tell Motel. He used to self-publish comics for a long time, too, so maybe you also know him from there.
Kurt Refling
Kurt Refling is a designer, writer, and artist based in Ottawa, ON. He's also the co-creator of Here We Used to Fly, a game about abandoned theme parks and the bittersweet nostalgia of growing up. Kurt has published narrative TTRPGs including Knots in the Sky, Big Dog Big Volcano, and Star Chapters.
Marceline Leiman
Marceline Leiman is a freelance New York City-based game designer, developer, and adjunct professor at NYU Game Center. She loves exploring new forms of playing games, focusing on those that draw players closer together.
Mikey Hamm
Mikey lives in Edmonton, Alberta with his wife Stephanie and their two children, Butterspoon and Agent Roundhouse. He feels privileged to spend his early mornings doing something as wonderfully unimportant as making games. His titles include Two-Hand Path and the award-winning TTRPG, Slugblaster.
Pamela Punzalan
Pam Punzalan is a multi-awarded Filipino queer woman best known for her work on D&D: Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, Spire: Shadow Operations, Hunter: The Reckoning, Thirsty Sword Lesbians and the up and coming Dagger Isles Supplement for Blades in the Dark. You may also recognize her for her work with Big Bad Con, where she is one half of Special Events - including their uplifting work for POC creatives in tabletop.
Pascal Godbout
Pascal is the main designer for @SpotlessDiceGames and has published multiple supplements for Fate of Cthulhu. He returns to BreakoutCon with Ringmaster, his new Descended from the Queen TTRPG.
Reed Mascola
Reed Mascola (he/him) is a Toronto-based game designer and founder of Paranoia Rising Games. He designed and self-published Vigilante, a superhero game with hidden roles, and CATNIP Auction House, which was published by Tin Robot Games. Watch out for other new designs to hit the shelves, including the Rûnebeasts Deck-Building Game and more!
Ric Heise
Ric Heise is Mythworks' Chief People Person! Ric is the first point of contact for people interested in Mythworks. For Mythworks, Ric handles the Supporter Experience, Retail and Related Relationships, Connecting a Network of Creativity, and Your Curiosity. Ric is a contributing writer and designer for The Wildsea in addition to being Head of Playtesting. Ric is a Lyric Game Creator and Curator of Ephemeral Joys. Ric can be found on Mythworks' related Discords, or reached by emailing contact@myth.works. Ric would love to play a game with you, especially if you made it!
Robin Ekberg
Robin Ekberg is a Tabletop producer and performer, known as the GM of the Award winning Starfinder show The Atomless, and Frequencies, as well as appearing on Unprepared Casters, Demiplane, Paizo, One Shot and credited in TTRPGs such as Ragnarock, All the Witches and Daggerheart.
Rui Albino
Rui Albino is a Story Artist, Director, and Animator for Film and AAA gaming since 1990. Rui received an honorarium for dungeon mastering in the early 80s and has been a Table Top Gamer ever since. Some of Rui’s accomplishments can be seen on IMDB or in the credits of Ubisoft games, Disney’s “The Gargoyles” and many, many more. Rui has been developing The Seas of Infinity TTRPG for the last four decades and has committed to completing his life long passion.
Ryan Khan
Ryan Khan is a London-based TTRPG designer and teacher. He is the author of Told by Starlight and The Festival of Deep Winter, and the sensitivity consultant on The Wildsea RPG. He loves to explore the intersection between games and learning, and how play drives creativity.
Scott Kelly
Scott Kelly is the S in BSGames. Along with Bill Murphy, he created Mathemagician's Duel and Sinoda, and continues to come up with more ideas for games than he has time to work on them.
Sebastian Yūe
Sebastian Yūe (they/them) is an award–winning, queer TTRPG designer, writer, and editor based in Canada. They are best known for their contributions to Apocalypse Keys: Doomsday Delights, Cloud Empress: Year One Adventure Bundle, and Pathfinder Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries, and their editing work on the Cosmere RPG, Daggerheart, and UNCAGED: Goddesses. A former competitive fencer, Sebastian brings the might of the pen and the sword to their work.
Shannon McDowell
Shannon McDowell is a Canadian board game and puzzle designer who works with various board game publishers and professional organizations to design escape room games and gamified learning programs, including Funko’s Star Trek: Cryptic. She has published two academic articles on cultural bias in escape rooms, and was a member of the design team for the 2019 Red Bull Escape Room World Championship.
Shiraz Sheikh
Shiraz Sheikh is a passionate educator and creator with a multifaceted career spanning academia, game design, and media. As a professor in the Liberal Arts, he teaches a wide range of subjects at various colleges and universities in Toronto and surrounding area. Shiraz is also a game designer and one of the creators of the CATaclysm: The Roleplaying Game. He is currently developing a board game adaptation of CATaclysm and designing a new multi-genre RPG system. As the founder of Akinji Entertainment, Shiraz channels his creativity into innovative gaming experiences. In addition, he co-hosts the popular podcast The Commanders of the Cosmos, where he dives into geek culture and storytelling with his signature enthusiasm and expertise.
Tim W. K. Brown
Tim W. K. Brown, a multiple award winning game designer from Stouffville, Ontario, is proud to be a guest once again at Breakout. His games have been sold in a dozen countries and have been featured in multiple magazines and podcasts. His most well known games are Wreck Raiders, Quartex, Gridstones, and Order of Invention.
Todd Crapper
Todd Crapper is an award-winning tabletop roleplaying game designer and indie publisher for almost 30 years. Looking at that number for the first time, he fell back against the chair and felt a shiver run down his spine. A career of beloved games flashed before him, from the Combat Advantage zine to Killshot to High Plains Samurai. As if chiming in to a narrator's rendition of chilling poem, he whispered, "What if there was more?"
Yeonsoo Kim
Yeonsoo Julian Kim is a game designer and writer who works primarily in tabletop roleplaying games and interactive fiction. Their game Women Are Werewolves, co-designed by C.A.S. Taylor and published by 9th Level Games, won Best RPG in Dicebreaker’s 2023 Tabletop Awards and was a winner in the inaugural Nonbinary Tabletop Awards in 2024. Other games include Home, co-designed with Doug, and the two time ENnie-winning Avatar Legends RPG. They are based in Austin, Texas.