2019 Game Devs of Color Expo

700+ attendees gathered in person at the Schomburg Center.

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Get a quick look at the all day event at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, NYC.

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2019 games list

Can Androids Pray

Xalavier Nelson Jr., Natalie Clayton, and Priscilla Snow

Can Androids Pray is a shortform narrative game about angry femme mechs at the end of the world, and God. CW: Suicide

Chaos Tavern

DragonBear Studios

Quick! We need mana potions and steak for the dragon! Chaos Tavern is a co-op adventure about you and your friends running an enchanted tavern in an Australian inspired fantasy world. Team up together to serve otherworldly patrons, pacify unruly monsters, discover magical potions and unlock your tavern's mysterious powers in this hilarious quest to overcome the evil Wizard – your landlord!

Chrono Ghost

Kelly Thomas Davis

You are the Chrono Ghost, you must progress through challenging levels using your newly acquired abilities. As you progress, your adventure becomes considerably more demanding. There are many secrets to discover on your journey. Go forth and find them. hurry, time is running out!

Fallen Angel

Matrioshka Games

Fallen Angel is an Hack and Slash RPG in which you take the role of Lucifer and explore a twisted version of heaven. Find and defeat the Archangels who banished you from the realm of the divine.

FictionSphere

Team Einherjar

FictionSphere is a 2-D Technical Pl​atformer, an action game that will test your reactions, dexterity, timing, and how stylish you can be. Combining various classic mechanics from arcade games, platformers, and light RPG systems , a new adventure awaits to test your skill.

Half

Studio Aesthesia

"Half" is a series of vignettes detailing the experience of being on the fringe of two identities and the invisible toll it takes. Pulled from memories both good and bad, the game is a love letter to all mixed-race folks who always felt a little out of place.

HyperDot

Charles McGregor // Tribe Games

Dodge Everything. HyperDot is an action arcade game rooted in minimalist design, maximum challenge, and infinite flexibility. Evade enemies and test your skills in over 100 trials in the campaign mode, outlast your friends in multiplayer battles, or build custom challenges with the level editor.

Portal Tamers

SkyReach Studio

Portal Tamers is a fantasy adventure RPG that follows a naive and innocent farm girl named Luna on a journey to save her world from the evil corruption of the dark force named “The Abyss”. Using the powers given to her by a mysterious being she can summon creatures from the portal realms to be her allies in the battle against this great evil. Adventure awaits, only with the power of the Tamer can you stop the abyss, it is your destiny.

Pre-Shave

Saam Pahlavan

Pre-Shave is a quirky personal game about dealing with the physical anxieties that come with being a brown man. Oh also lots of body hair...like a lot.

Queering Spacetime

Joyce Lin

In Queering Spacetime, roleplay girls with big queer crushes on each other, destined lovers across the whole of space and time. Create a series of enjoyable dates in the slightly magical in-between spaces of life, like a playground in full moonlight

Rap Godz

Omari Akil

Rap Godz is a modern board game that puts you in the role of an up and coming hip-hop artist on your path to greatness. The gameplay is a mix of strategy and storytelling as you play cards that represent events in your emcee's career and life. You have three albums to prove your self as you up your swag, build your skills, earn street cred, start beef, grab goals, and takeover cities.

Robot Slow Dance

Squinky

A two-player animatronic diorama game contained entirely inside of a briefcase. Players control a pair of robots who, rather than fighting, dance with and talk to each other, in an exploration of awkwardness, intimacy, and queer relationships.

Salamender

Izel Moctezuma

Grab a friend and get cooking in this whimsical VR/PC co-op game! With only La Tia's old recipe book and some hints from her trusty pet grub Basurita to guide you, work together to harness the magic of the land and heal people's souls with your delicious empanadas. Will your baking live up to the family name or will chaos reign supreme?

Sashimi Slammers

Furious Fish Friends

Sashimi Slammers is an alternative controller game where fish are destined to die, duke it out to see who is more honorable. Two players slam on plastic fish controllers which control what two fish do on screen, they try to push their opponent into the deep fryer before they can get pushed in themselves.

Saturday Morning Games

Plausible Studio

Saturday Morning Games is a battle table-top game based off of popular Saturday Morning Cartoons! Fight over random weapons, with popular characters from multiple shows and conquer your opponent by winning all of their bowls of cereal!

She Dreams Elsewhere

Studio Zevere

SHE DREAMS ELSEWHERE is a surreal adventure RPG about dreams and the extent to which they mirror reality. You are Thalia Sullivan, a high strung, anxiety-ridden, comatose woman on a journey to defeat the nightmares preventing her awakening all while finding out how exactly this mess happened in the first place. Unfortunately, some nightmares are harder to confront than others…

Skate And Date

Gensuta

Skate & Date is a roller derby rhythm ga(y)me where you play as Maggie, the lead jammer of the Rockin Rollergirls! She has a bit of a crush on Patricia – one of the opponents on the rival team. Your objective: to impress her with your sick roller derby skills!

SweetXheart

Catt Small

Can you get through a week in the life of a modern black woman? SweetXheart (pronounced “sweetheart”) is a slice-of-life visual novel about microagressions, race, and gender. The game shares creative technologist Catt Small's perspective on being a Black woman seeking success in life, school, and her career. Players act as Kara, a 19-year-old girl from the Bronx who attends an art college and interns at a tech company.

Swimsanity!

Decoy Games

Swimsanity! is a multiplayer underwater shooter with action-packed Co-Op and Versus game modes, all supported by online and local play. You play as our hero Mooba, who uses a variety of unique power ups and weapons to survive in this aquatic world.

The Lighthouse

Shadow Knights Studio

The Lighthouse is a uniquely crafted thriller with glimpses into psychotic, alternate dimensions. Private Investigator James Irvine finds himself lured into a haunting, neo-noir world in search of a missing young woman, named Lily Beaumont. Traverse the abandoned property of Maine’s wealthiest family, the Wescotts, as you search for the truth.

World of Ether

Solidity Studios

World of Ether is a decentralized crypto collectible video game on the Ethereum blockchain. Players can breed, battle and sell digital monsters.

Operation Kanshi

Amanda Siswojo, Emperatriz Ung

November 1949. The Kanshi Party just won the Mihong Civil War. Taomin Party members fled east to Mareu Island. Major hostilities between the two parties has ceased.
  
Your assignment as an Intel Operative is to take encrypted orders from your commanding officer via radio transmission and wiretap phone lines for the Ministry of Order & Stability. Follow the case of Vera & Poppy Song as the sisters find themselves aligned with opposing political parties after the war.

Phantom

Temitope Olujob, Rachel Moeller

Phantom is a sinister, comedic single player 3D exploration puzzle game for PC and console. You play as the ghost of a former actor haunting the theatre you died in. As a ghost, you have no physical form to walk around in. Instead, you must exact your revenge on the cast and crew responsible for your death by possessing props and objects backstage. Wield the items you inhabit to kill your targets in unique puzzles.

We Should Talk

Team We Should Talk

We Should Talk is a narrative game in which players choose how to handle a failing relationship. Through in-person conversations with patrons at a favorite bar and text conversations with their partner, players make conversational choices that lead to one of several possible relationship outcomes by the end the night. A unique combinatorial choice mechanic gives players the freedom to express themselves and engage in nuanced conversations about life, love, and relationships.

Despelote

Julian Cordero and Sebastian Velbuena

‘despelote’ is a single player, first person, semi-autobiographical narrative where players use a soccer ball to interact socially with the world and its characters. Throughout the game, the player will be exposed to the social ramifications of soccer. The game intends to separate itself from soccer as commonly seen on TV, instead, placing its focus on the sociopolitical context of soccer around the world, where it is played in streets and parks, and how it bleeds into many aspects of society.

Super Space Club

GrahamOfLegend

Super Space Club is an arcade-styled space shooting game about pilots defending the galaxy. Setting out to be the top-ranked club in the galaxy, the player controls a group of pilots known as the 'Super Space Club.' The player's objective is to complete missions and defeat as many enemies as possible while ensuring to not deplete all of their ship's energy, sending them back to their beginning base.

Into The Dark

Orc Punk

Lost in the heart of a mysterious forest filled with fearsome creatures intent on killing you, you search the darkness for the child who calls your name.  Find the Child. Defy the Foe. Escape the Forest. Conquer the Fear. INTO THE DARK : Narakan is a top-down turn-based adventure/strategy game with a clean minimalist style and a dark ambient mood.

Show all 27 games

2019 speaker list

Khalil and Ahmed Abdullah

Decoy Games is an indie game company founded by two brothers with a passion for game development. With no prior professional game development experience they used their deep passion for video games and extensive imagination to create the award winning, Nindies Showcase featured “Swimsanity!” which will be released on PC, Xbox, PS4, and Switch this Summer 2019. Swimsanity! is part of our games expo.

Alex A.K.

Alex is a non-binary artist and designer with 10 years of games industry experience. They’ve worked in the Japanese, Middle Eastern and American games industry and driven several initiatives that focus on putting POC in the spotlight and providing them support to shine without ever having to justify their presence at the table.

Xalavier Nelson Jr.

When he isn’t busy helping create the strange alternate internet of Hypnospace Outlaw, Xalavier Nelson Jr. is an IGF-nominated narrative designer, game developer, writer, PC Gamer columnist,IntroComp organizer, and MCV Rising Star. He is very tired as a result, and appreciates your understanding. Can Androids Pray is part of our games expo.

Aubrey Scott

Aubrey Scott is a trans, native lesbian making NASCAR games more inclusive as a gameplay engineer. During her graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University, she sold her IP to EA, led her student pitch project to improve onboarding in Tabletop RPGs, and became a Randy Pausch and Penny Arcade Scholar. Ms. Scott hopes to someday run her own studio making companions on queerness and sexuality. Outside games she is a yoga instructor, an ex roller derby athlete, a podcast host, and an organizer of LGBTQ+ safe spaces for youth and adults.

Chase Bethea

Chase Bethea is a freelance Composer that has shipped 18 titles in his nine years experience. He has scored games such as I Can’t Escape Darkness, Aground, and Potions Please. He continues to compose a diverse collection of music that are a fusion of texture and complexity allowing the player to become immersed in the experience. His soundtrack for “Cubic Climber” earned a Noteworthy on Destructoid. In 2016, Chase was nominated for Artists of the Year – Independent Composer by VGMO.

Marley Hall

My name is Marley, I’m a biracial 2D and 3D artist living in Brooklyn. My favorite food is inari.

Shawn Allen Alexander

Shawn’s 11+ years in games includes designer, artist, animator, writer, producer, trailer editor, and music publisher. He is a habitual tweeter, lover of action movies, sneakers and hip-hop. Shawn is currently making the dark comedy tactical beat ‘em up Treachery in Beatdown City, and is perpetually looking for spaces to exhibit the graffiti turf warfare board game Corporate Vandals. Always support #blackgamedev

Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo

Sammus is an Afrofuturist producer and rapper with a PhD in science & technology studies from Cornell University. Since 2012 she has walked the line between entertainment and academia, producing five albums that draw on her deep interest in video games, cartoons, and black feminism among other topics.

Raheem J Jarbo

When LA Weekly said that Ran’s “fanbase and niche audiences are growing at a rate not seen since Tech N9ne,” they meant it. A former middle school teacher, Mega Ran (formerly Random) blends education, hip-hop and gaming in amazing new ways, penetrating the farthest reaches of the galaxy with his unique rhyme style and electric performances.

Mike Eagle

Open Mike Eagle is an independent rapper, born in Chicago, now living in Los Angeles. Eagle has released 9 studio albums since 2007, including Brick Body Kids still Daydream (2017) which made it on year end list of Spin & Rolling Stone. Taking a break from global touring to film his debut television show New Negros, co hosted with comedian Barron Vaughn which premiered on Comedy Central earlier this year.

Davionne Gooden

Davionne Gooden is a 21-year-old filmmaker, photographer and solo game developer based in Cleveland, OH. He is the creative director at Studio Zevere, and is currently developing the surreal adventure RPG “She Dreams Elsewhere” for PC, Mac and Linux. If you like weird, stylish games from new perspectives and an emotional rollercoaster of a story, then you’ve come to the right place. Davionne is also awful at writing descriptions about himself and would much rather you come talk to him in person. Or avoid all contact entirely. Up to you. SHE DREAMS ELSEWHERE is part of our games expo.

Limpho Moeti

Limpho Moeti is the Deputy Festival Director for Playtopia in Cape Town. She has worked for Free Lives, done talks at A MAZE./Johannesburg, A MAZE./Berlin and the Nordic Game Jam. When she isn’t working, she does a podcast with her best friend called Bad Form. She loves thinking about smashing the patriarchy and white supremacy, how she has the best cat and Val Kilmer was the most kissable Batman.

She is definitely not a robot sent from the future to destroy humanity.

Sherri Smith

An avid gamer, audiophile and lover of extra-large phones and super-fast gaming laptops, Sherri L. Smith has been covering consumer electronics for over a decade. She has covered tech for Black Web 2.0, BET.com, FastCompany. com and Inc.com. Considered an expert in her field, she’s made appearances on CNN, Fox News, Cheddar and numerous panels discussing the joys and pitfalls of tech and gaming. She currently serves as the assistant managing editor at Tom’s Guide/Laptop Mag with a focus on gaming software and hardware as well as virtual, augmented and mixed reality and audio.

Brandon Dixon

Brandon Dixon - Creator and Author of Swordsfall. He’s a longtime omni-nerd who grew up during the golden days of Toonami, Spawn comic books and G4. (yeaaa remember that?) However, as a black man in the hobby, he found himself longing for more stories that told the adventures of people that looked like him. Creating Swordsfall has not only been an effort to be the change he wanted to see, but also as his own personal journey.

Evva Kraikul

Evva Kraikul is the Founder & Creative Director of GLITCH, an independent video game label home to bold new voices and big ideas. As an award winning systems designer with 10+ years of experience, Evva has worked alongside over 50 major technology and gaming industry partners such as Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Riot, and PBS to develop games, design programming, and launch international initiatives. HyperDot is part of our games expo.

Geneva Heyward

Geneva “Gensuta” Heyward is a game developer currently pursuing a BFA at NYU. They've made a couple of games since they started attending the School of Interactive Arts ( where they now work!) and wants to create more games with marginalized folk being badass. When they're not making games, they're daydreaming about starting an indie rock band. Skate & Date is part of our games expo.

Kevin Zhang

Kevin Zhang is a co-founder at Serenity Forge, a game development and publishing studio that makes meaningful games. As a designer, producer, and business development manager on the team, Kevin works with a diverse team to bring ideas to life. Having had his life changed forever after playing Journey in 2012, Kevin seeks to create games that can positively change the player’s outlook on life in meaningful ways.

Josh Boykin

Josh Boykin is a game critic, consultant, content creator, and founder of Intelligame, a game site and community all about intelligent discussion around games and the culture. He’s written about games since 2009, and spoken at multiple events about diversity, mental health, and community building. You can find much of his games work at intelligame.us. and more of his personal experiences (including his mac and cheese blog) at joshboykin.com.

Aziza Brown

Aziza owns the Esports team, Dynamik Focus and has worked with a group of professional competitive gamers and content creators who have been seen on Disney XD and during the MK11 reveal.

Dietrich Squinkifer

Squinky is a new media artist living in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal) who creates games and playable experiences about gender identity, social awkwardness, and miscellaneous silliness. Robot Slow Dance is part of our games expo.

Juan Vaca

Juan Vaca is a narrative designer in Northern California. He is an advocate for authentic representation in storytelling. Juan recognizes that the agency created through games can be a powerful tool for creating player empathy.

Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson is a game developer based in the UK, currently working at Sumo Digital. He also makes small non-commercial games exploring themes of dyspraxia, and co-organizes the biannual Idle Thumbs community game jam. He’s currently thinking a lot about the concept of games as expressive systems.

Catt Small

Catt is a product designer, game maker, and developer. She is currently making awesome things at Etsy. She started programming interactive games around the age of 10 and has been going ever since. In her spare time, Catt makes video games with Brooklyn Gamery, writes, and draws comics. She is also an editorial board member for Rosenfeld Media. You can follow her @cattsmall on Twitter and view her work at www.cattsmall.com.

Show all 23 speakers

2019 game dev grant winner

We collaborated with Humble to present the first-ever Humble Bundle Game Creator of Color Award for $15,000.

Ethan Redd

Ethan Redd is a multimedia designer/artist, consultant, and founder of the Virtuoso Neomedia. Redd boasts a signature style sporting bold colors, sharp silhouette, and lively, life-affirming charm. A self-taught jack-of-all trades and one man juggernaut, Redd believes in the power of art and media to inspire individuals to reach higher and push further in their own lives.

Ethan’s finished game, Zodiac XX, launched on the Humble Trove in August of 2020.

Get Zodiac XX

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