Lone Share Games, Inc.

Game & Event Design Studio
Lone Shark Games is an exceptional collective of some of the best and brightest in the gaming and entertainment industries.

We exist to bring innovation and playtime to events and promotions, and to advance the science of stellar game and puzzle design. Whether it’s a brand new game, a bold advertising campaign, or a mind-blowing corporate event, our experience in maneuvering these oceans is vast. We’ve pooled our talents to deliver inspired, unique, and fun solutions to your needs.

Like our fierce and efficient namesake, Lone Shark Games, Inc. is a force to be reckoned with. We are imaginative, we are fast, we are fearless, we are adaptable, we are a shark…and there’s only one of us.

Games

The design team at Lone Shark Games, Inc. is an award-winning, go-to source for game design, with the ability to create games on demand, or to consult on your design projects. We can start from scratch and develop a game just for you, or we can help your game reach its full creative and financial potential. We can help you understand the process of making a compelling game in the hobby market by consulting on your business plan. We do this fast, and then get out – we are a shark after all, swift and precise. 

Lone Shark Games also has an arsenal of original, available designs for qualified game publishers. To check the games on our front burner, contact <<Mike Selinker>> for access to the secure portion of our site.

 Click on any game below to see some of our published designs:
Pirates of the Spanish Main, Link 26, Harrow, Stonehenge, Unspeakable Words, Verticon, Cowpoker, Gloria Mundi, On the Spot Games, Fightball, Dust & Sin, Dungeonville, American Idol CCG, Veritas, Key Largo, Game Revisions 

Pirates of the Spanish Main

WizKids LLC, 2004

WizKids introduced a new category of games, the “Constructible Strategy Game,” with Pirates of the Spanish Main, a polystyrene pirate ship game for 2 or more players. The game is sold in booster packs which contain two complete ships, an island, another card (perhaps crew or treasure) and a 6-sided die. Two boosters is just enough for a small 2-player game, but the game is infinitely expandable with all the detail and complexity of a CCG, plus the fun of building some pretty cute little pirate ships. The game has spawned boatloads of expansions and continues to sell like mad

Unspeakable Words
Playroom Entertainment, 2007

The long-awaited fusion of word-making and insanity comes to life in this Call of Cthulhu word game. As you make words, letters with angles are more dangerous (and valuable) than those without angles. Make a word that’s too angular, and you could lose your sanity. Comes with 30 sweet Cthulhu pawns.

 

Letter Hold ’Em, Kotsuku, Zero In
On the Spot Games, 2006
On the Spot Games is publishing these three tin-box games as part of its new line of games available from both retailers and restaurants. Each takes two popular hobbies and combines them. Letter Hold ’Em is a word game for poker players. Kotsuku is a word game for sudoku lovers. And Zero In is a trivia game for roleplaying fans. 

American Idol CCG
Fleer / Skybox Inc., 2004
Based on the third season of the popular American Idol television show, this stand-alone card game features singers, songs, judges, and special effects from the show. The object of the game is to get as many of your own contestants as you can into the finals, then survive the finals as the audience votes the worst acts off the stage. Playable by a wide range of players, this game is lightweight and skill-based, and was a bit hit among the staff at Fleer. 

Link 26
MindWare, 2008
We took the classic word game Geography—the one where the first letter of your word must be the last letter of the last word played—and brought it into the modern era. Now, your letter tiles are disappearing quickly off the table, so you need to quickly identify an athlete whose name begins with D and ends with X, J, or Q. (“Doctor J”?) 

Verticon
Wild Planet Toys, 2006
You’ve never seen anything like this, we expect. Take some ping-pong ball sized creatures, load them up with pointy weaponry, and build an army based on their stats and special abilities. Then drop them into the airstream and watch them fight in the sky. Designed with Bob Brattesani of the Wild Planet staff. 

Fightball
James Ernest / Cheapass Games, 2002
Fightball was the first major collaboration between Mike Selinker and James Ernest. Originally conceived as a CCG, the game was reformatted as a modular real-time card game and released by James Ernest Games. The game features six decks of imaginary sports teams in a whimsical future sport called Fightball. Players play their team, balls, shots, and special effects, in a no-turns format. Each lightning-fast round lasts less than a minute. Scoring takes another three, and a full game (four quarters) lasts less than 20 minutes. 

Veritas
Rio Grande Games, 2008
Veritas is a Euro-style board game about the preservation of truth in Dark Ages France. Each player represents some “truth,” trying to be preserved for posterity by diligent book-copying monks. Players place and copy book tokens in monasteries, and then pick up stacks of their own and other players’ books and spread them around France. Each turn, a monastery will burn down and the books in it may be destroyed. After the monasteries burn down, players can move through them, so travel on the board gets faster as the game progresses. When scoring chips are drawn, each player whose ideology dominates a region scores points. The first player to score 100 points wins, and becomes the dominant truth as the Dark Ages end. 

Harrow
Paizo Publishing, 2008
Harrow is a tarot-like deck usable with any roleplaying campaign. It uses a unique divination mechanic based on the standard abilities and alignments. This mysterious card deck is also playable as a cutthroat gambling game called Towers, co-designed with Paizo’s Jason Bulmahn. An elegant fusion of card games and roleplaying games.

Cowpoker
Steve Jackson Games/Pegasus Spiele, 2006
Cow Poker is a game for 2 to 4 players, though it always has four ranches, the remainder of which are “deadwood,” or automatic players. Each player (live or deadwood) controls a ranch in a humorous cow town, and only cards from your own ranch have any effect for you. The game consists of a series of card plays in which players try to accumulate the most points and form the best poker hands by playing valuable cards, making good choices, and winning tricks called “Gunfights” and “Roundups.” 

Dust & Sin
Titanic Games, 2008
If Las Vegas did not exist, we would have to invent it. Dust & Sin is a board game for 2-6 players about building Las Vegas. The game features plastic casinos and several dozen dice representing players’ ownership and power in the casinos they build. On your turn, you can gain property, build casinos, jockey for power, and earn cash and points. A highly strategic and colorful board game.

Key Largo
Tilsit Editions, 2005/Titanic Games, 2008
Key Largo was the last game designed by the late designer Paul Randles, and was brought to the public through the efforts of Lone Shark and designer Bruno Faidutti. It’s 1899, and a hurricane is bearing down on the peaceful isle of Key Largo. Your salvage company wants to pluck all the treasures from nearby shipwrecks before it’s too late.

Stonehenge
Titanic Games, 2007
Stonehenge is an “anthology” board game, the first of its kind, featuring five unique game designs that use the same set of components. Stonehenge features five games by Richard Borg, James Ernest, Bruno Faidutti, Richard Garfield, and Mike Selinker, all set in the mysterious world of Stonehenge. 2008’s first expansion, Nocturne, features new games by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede, Andy Looney, Bruno Cathala and Serge Laget. 

Gloria Mundi
Rio Grande Games, 2008
Gloria Mundi is a board game for 2-6 players set during the fall of Rome. You’re a Roman statesman struggling to survive in this era of cultural decline and political chaos. And this basically means running as far from Rome as you can. When the Visigoth reaches Rome, or a player who has fled the furthest from Rome wins.

 Dungeonville
Z-Man Games/Pegasus Spiele, 2006
Dungeonville is a dungeoneering card game for 2 to 5 players. The players take the roles of powerful mad wizards who own the five dungeons surrounding the town of Dungeonville. You recruit parties of adventurers and send them into the dungeons, earning points by defeating other characters in combat and by killing other parties in your own dungeon. The life expectancy of the adventurers is measured in minutes, and gold only gets used for hiring more saps to die on your behalf.

 

Game revisions

Various companies

One of Lone Shark’s specialties is bringing new life to already published or undeveloped games. We revise and rebalance rules, spice up art, and bring out new editions. Some of our projects include Titanic’s color edition of the Cheapass classic Kill Doctor Lucky; developing the 2nd edition and expansions for Playroom’s wacky Sitting Ducks Gallery; and re-envisioning the hit wargame Attack!’s Deluxe Edition, originally by Eagle Games.

Lords of Paradise: Las Vegas
Mayfair Games, 2010
If Las Vegas did not exist, we would have to invent it. Lords of Paradise is a board game about building Las Vegas. The game features plastic casinos and several dozen dice, representing players’ ownership and power in the casinos they build. On your turn, you gain property, build casinos, jockey for power, and earn cash and points. A highly strategic and colorful board game.

Yetisburg
Titanic Games, 2008
This war’s anything but civil. Designed with Joshua Frost, Yetisburg is the (mostly) true story of America’s bloodiest days, when both the North and the South rallied fierce yetis and mammoths to their sides. The weaponry is even less accurate than you’d imagine, and casualties mount at an alarming rate of speed. This chaotic alternate-history card game is so funny, it showed up on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.

Warstone
Duncan Toys, 2009
Warstone (originally released as Warball) is a collectible card game with a twist: the cards are matched to collectible marbles. Lone Shark developed the game from a design by Richard Levy, Trish Bell, and Brian Tinsman. Players build their decks and marble armies, then face off on a playground or table. Set in a rich fantasy world, Warstone tests your physical and mental skill. That’s just how we roll.

Top Ten: Ten Commandments and Top Ten: Bill of Rights
Bucephalus Games, 2009
We don’t shy away from controversy here at Lone Shark. Designed with Dan Tibbles, our Top Ten line is a simple voting card game designed to determine the ten most popular rules from a number of offerings. The final result will be the Bill of Rights or the Ten Commandments—and there’s no guarantee that, when the votes are counted, those hallowed documents will resemble the ones we know.

Michelangelo
Bucephalus Games, 2009
An artful board game featuring the greatest works in history. Michelangelo is a rock star in the Renaissance art world, which means you—his humble apprentices—are going to do all the work. Curry the favor of Italy’s patron families, delay your rivals’ projects, and get your credit when the master finally shows up to finish his masterworks.

 Event Design and Production 

Lone Shark is pioneering out-of-the-box, interactive events that not only effectively and creatively meet your strategic objectives, but will make sure your guests have an unforgettable experience.

Your company’s event, launch party or meet ‘n’ greet takes on a new face when you give your guests the opportunity to play and cooperatively immerse themselves in activities that are not only fun but delivering your key messages and strategic objectives. Custom-designed for your needs, we offer a humanized experience for your guests to have fun as spies or alien hunters, to play with cool devices like voice transformers and invisible ink, or to take on some puzzle-solving brain work. These events can also infuse a real morale boost into your team-building corporate retreats!

Specialty events designed for 10 or tens of thousands are our expertise and our passion - and no other fish in the sea can do what we do.

Select an event for details. Planechase Challenge, Scrabble Walk, Tatooine Parlor, Bing-O, Seimens Game Show, Champions Party, Uncharted Live, Guardian 6
Arbor Schools Auction, X-Blades Live, Microsoft Picnic, LinkUp, GuildWars Live, Gen Con Puzzle Hunt, Mines of Moria, Thingo!
Secret Space Network, Origins Trivia Game, Freaky Creatures, Pax Infernis 

Siemens Game Show
Our game shows entertain employees and customers, as at this retreat for Siemens at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Employees answered corporate trivia questions using handheld input devices, and played for chips usable at the Bellagio’s gaming tables.

Gen Con Puzzle Hunt
Lone Shark’s puzzle hunts range from simple trivia games on placards to much more complex challenges. Here in Indianapolis, solvers use their noses to tackle a perfume-based puzzle. (Note the walkie-talkie. Some puzzlers come prepared to win.) 

Thingo!
One of our best original game shows is Thingo!, or bingo with things. Here, Microsoft employees huddle around bingo cards with categories like “Something pointy.” Our model demonstrates the proper use of a blowgun, which is most definitely pointy. We’ve run versions of Thingo! at other events, including at the GAMA Trade Show, Arbor Schools, and the MIT Mystery Hunt.

Uncharted Live
Sometimes a company wants an unmistakable visual impression for its product. At PAX in Seattle, Sony asked us to create a launch event for its Playstation 3 game Uncharted, complete with a clue-laden climbing wall, a giant puzzle box, and a machine gun nest. 

LinkUp
Lone Shark’s LinkUp makes strangers into friends. At this gathering for the Portland firm EdgeLink Technology Recruiters, each attendee got a badge with a phrase, and tried to link to others. Here, “Victoria” and “Freddie Mercury” have in common the word QUEEN.

Guardian 6
When Lone Shark does a full-immersion event, players actually become their characters, as Gen Con’s Guardian 6 events. Taking on the roles of spies, players piloted video-camera cars, got kidnapped by ninjas, and fired high-power lasers. 

Microsoft Picnic
As corporate events go, there are few larger than the Microsoft Picnic, where 40,000 employees and guests come out to play. Here, our raygun shrank attendees to six inches tall, and we let them loose among giant flowers, bird’s nests, and wishing wells. In other years, we recreated the Seven Wonders of the World and created a 240-acre model of the solar system. Nothing is too big for our clients.

GuildWars Live
ArenaNet asked Lone Shark to immerse players in the world of the popular fantasy game GuildWars. So we spread stations all over the PAX convention, where players could solve magical sudokus, enter a temple, and use Nerf crossbows to take out targets. 

Tatooine Parlor
At Star Wars Celebration in Los Angeles, Lone Shark recreated the planet of Tatooine for thousands of costumed Star Wars fans. Players shot womp rats, joined the Imperial Navy, and settled once and for all who shot first: Han or Greedo.

Planechase Challenge
Wizards of the Coast/Starfish Creative Events
This multimedia event at PAX was a visual tour de force. After solving physical puzzles for the five Magic: The Gathering colors, players were transported to Trinity Nightclub, where a 12’ floating octahedron shone with cryptic runes. After a scavenger hunt and puzzle game, players’ handstamps lit up under black light, giving them a way to decode the runes. The winner reached inside the obelisk and pulled out $1,000 in the shape of a black lotus.

 Scrabble Walk
Seattle Arthritis Foundation
We spiced up a fundraising event for the Arthritis Foundation by giving players Scrabble tiles at seven checkpoints along the route. At the end, players could make a word with their tiles, and were scored against their fellow participants. Players used their brains and their muscles to raise money for a good cause. 

Bing-O
Microsoft/Andy Mirkovich Productions
Sometimes the obvious idea is the best idea. Microsoft asked if we could make a bingo event for the new search engine Bing. We gave thousands of players bingo cards with words in the boxes. Then our host Ken Carson called out a question and we searched for the results on Bing. By the end of the game, players knew all the key features of Bing, and had a great gameplay experience as well.

Champions Online Party
Cryptic Studios/Reverb Communications
The Rem Koolhaus-designed Seattle Public Library has always looked like the Hall of Justice to us. We got a chance to realize that vision for the debut of the hero-themed computer game Champions Online. This PAX party featured costumed characters, superheroic menu options, and a crazy wanted poster game.

Arbor Schools Auction
Eastside Montessori Foundation
When the cause is right, we’ll bring our event management skills to a fundraising event. The Eastside Montessori Foundation asked us to run their auction, which raised money for Arbor Schools scholarships and educational functions. We designed a series of puzzles leading up to the event, which raised enthusiasm and awareness. Then we kept the event lively and entertaining, leading to a strong showing from the donors.

X-Blades Live
Southpeak Interactive
For the X-Blades game launch at PAX, we created a demonic underworld. Players received tattoos of the six soul gems they needed to gain. Then they threw hot fireballs into demons’ mouths, decoded an eldritch message in spheres of power, tossed containment rings around devilish adversaries, and freed a prisoner from ghostly possession. This hellish spectacle led players deep inside the game world on a quest for their very souls.

 Mines of Moria
Turbine Entertainment
For their Lord of the Rings Online game, Turbine asked us to turn the PAX convention hall into the Mines of Moria. At every doorway, a tall banner offered a riddle—but it was written in Dwarvish runes. To learn this ancient language, players had to master a decoder key found in their program books. This would allow them to crack the codes and solve the perplexing riddles.

Secret Space Network
Microsoft/Blue Rooster Marketing
With the Sharepoint Developer Conference in town, Microsoft felt like showing them an out-of-this-world event. So we did that. We created the Secret Space Network, staffed by our mysterious Women in Black. At the Microsoft Conference Center, players solved spacy puzzles to find clues to an alien invasion, and then were bused over to the Experience Music Project to track down the invaders in the Science-Fiction Museum.

Origins Trivia Game
Game Manufacturers Association
Every year at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, players scour the convention hallways for placards with clever trivia questions about their geek lifestyle. This is no easy challenge, as a complete mastery of all forms of nerd culture is required. One year the theme was geek movies, another year it was geek literature, still another it was geek games. Each time, players rush to beat the other solvers to see who will be crowned King of the Geeks.

Freaky Creatures
Abandon Interactive
Freaky Creatures is an online game where kids create wacky monsters and battle them against each others. For the game’s beta launch, we ran a puzzle hunt where the puzzle signs were five-foot-tall versions of the creatures themselves. Players had to puzzle out the names of the creatures and figure out what special (yet predictably gross) power would defeat them. Très freaky.

Pax Infernis
Turbine Entertainment
For the free-to-play launch of D&D Online, Turbine wanted an event built around their new icon, the sexy Succubus. With the Gates of Hell opened up on PAX, players listened to voice messages from the tricky Succubus revealing where her minions had gone. Players then had to track down images of the minions in a photo scavenger hunt, climaxing in a giant-dice battle against the succubus herself.

Print

Print Media—Books and Magazines
Dealer’s Choice, Wired’s Mystery Issue, Games Magazine, MSN’s Moxie Book, The Art of Texas Hold ’Em, 100 Best
Bluff Magazine, Trade Magazines, Gaming Books

Wired’s Mystery Issue
Wired, 2009
We enthusiastically joined acclaimed producer JJ Abrams and the Wired staff in re-envisioning the magazine for one insane issue. Everywhere readers looked—in the columns, on the masthead, even on the spine—there was a puzzle or code. It all united in a massive metapuzzle that required transforming the magazine itself. We were joined by an all-star cast of puzzlemakers, including legends Martin Gardner and Will Shortz.
 

MSN’s Moxie Book
Microsoft, 2008
MSN’s online mascot Moxie loves puzzles, so we gave her a book of them. For its convention circuit, Microsoft asked us to create an interlocking puzzle sequence showing off the most popular games on its site. So we created a Hexic puzzle, a Bookworm puzzle, and so on. Moxie narrated the book, giving our puzzles an exuberant personality.

 Revised print—100 Best (was Hobby Games: The 100 Best):

Hobby Games: The 100 Best
Family Games: The 100 Best
Green Ronin, 2007 and 2009

Normally, we wouldn’t list books in which we wrote 3% of the content. But we couldn’t leave aside the fact that all three principals at Lone Shark were asked to contribute to these treasure troves of game history. In each book, a hundred of the best game designers in the world reviewed a hundred of the best games ever published. Teeuwynn picked The Lord of the Rings and Boggle, Mike picked Bohnanza and Set, and James picked RoboRally and Candy Land. Yes, Candy Land.

New print—Trade Magazines:
Games Quarterly Magazine, 2005 to 2007
Game Trade Magazine, 2009

Our columns were featured in every issue of the hobby games magazine Games Quarterly. Mike wrote a series of columns featuring his top ten games on a specific subject, while James wrote humor columns about game design. Mike and Tey have also contribute regular bits of Warstone fiction to Game Trade Magazine.

Gaming Books
Various Publishers
Lone Shark’s authors regularly contribute to anthologies in the game world. We’ve been featured in Things We Think, a collection of rules learned in years of game design; the Descent: Quest Compendium, an all-star assortment of designers tackling the popular dungeon-crawl game; The Bones, a series of essays about dice; and so on. Writing about games and puzzles is almost as fun as making them, so we contribute every chance we get.

Promos
Promotional Games and Alternate Reality Games
Lone Shark is one of the leading design studios in the emerging field of promotional games. We long ago realized how quickly and broadly we could communicate with players and advertising customers using an array of online tools and game techniques. We are experts in the use of social media to attract and engage people in our games. We think we’re unparalleled in our understanding of what kinds of puzzles and stories work best in these realms. Let us show you what options you’ve never considered for your brand.

For alternate reality games, we also bring our live event skills into the game realm. Our ARGs usually begin online, but they quickly break the fourth wall and enter the real world. If you need a stunt that people will talk about for years, Lone Shark can envision, design, and implement it for you.
Click on the links below to see a few of our more innovative promotional games.

Citizens of Virtue, The Hunt for Evan Ratliff, El Tacodor, Guardian 6 Recruitment Site, Captain Mike’s Mars Adventure 

Citizens of Virtue
Zondervan/14Four Entertainment
Internet preacher Rob Bell wanted something to reach people who would never listen to one of his evangelical messages of hope. So we designed him one of the most controversial ARGs ever. Citizens of Virtue was an evangelical organization that launched its multimedia “Virtual Virtues” campaign in the middle of the charged 2008 election season. But Citizens of Virtue wasn’t a positive force for change; they were the bad guys. This was a wide-ranging, thought-provoking campaign involving Virtu-Volunteers at Christian rock concerts, commercials for the anti-lust drug Passionix, and puzzles made out of Bible quotes. We’re pretty confident that there’s never been anything like it.

www.citizensofvirtue.com (link: http://www.citizensofvirtue.com)

New promo—The Hunt for Evan Ratliff:
The Hunt for Evan Ratliff
Wired Magazine
In conjunction with a story about faked deaths, Wired journalist Evan Ratliff wanted to disappear for 30 days. So with over a thousand online detectives in tow, Lone Shark conducted a nationwide manhunt for Evan, with Teeuwynn as the lead hunter and Mike working behind the scenes as the puppetmaster. Daily clues were supplied by Wired editor Nick Thompson and Lone Shark (even placed into the New York Times crossword puzzle!). Players tracked Evan using high-tech tools and low-tech stakeouts, and finally caught him in New Orleans on Day 25. Thus, the genre of the “non-alternate reality game” was born.

www.wired.com/vanish (link: http://www.wired.com/vanish)

El Tacodor
General Mills/The Denuo Group
Chicago ad agency the Denuo Group wanted more than just a coupon for the Old El Paso brand. They asked us to help build a deep game site where you could literally play with your food. The El Tacodor campaign assigns categories to five foods found during a taco night; for example, Out of Your Shell, represented by a taco shell, is about doing performances. Players perform crazy tasks like interviewing their tacos, drawing with shredded cheese, and passing shells around the table without using their hands. El Tacodor brings families together around the table to eat and play.

www.eltacodor.com (link: http://www.eltacodor.com) 

Guardian 6 Recruitment Site
Gen Con LLC
For our immersive superspy ARG adventure in Indianapolis, we created a website that introduced the six powerful factions within the meta-agency Guardian 6. Players could enroll as one of the ninjas of Silent Whisper or become one of the femmes fatales of the Thorned Rose, among other agencies. When players involved themselves in our rich world of espionage, they knew they were ready to take Guardian 6 by storm.

Captain Mike's Mars Adventure
Microsoft/14Four
Microsoft's Bing decision engine sponsored the Facing Mars exhibit at Seattle's Pacific Science Center, and they wanted something to bring out the children of Washington state. Lone Shark and the web design team at 14Four created Captain Mike's Mars Adventure, an educational site featuring animated versions of the Captain and his robot cat, Blastoff. Children used Bing to learn about Mars's harsh conditions, then entered a contest by drawing Captain Mike's first day on Mars. By the time the kids were done, they were ready to blast off for a day at the science center. 

website link: www.pacificsciencecenter.org/marscontest

Press:
Our games and events get lots of media attention from the mainstream press and the cutting-edge online media. Here are some of our favorites.

ABC World News Tonight (link: http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8542683)
Abstract Gamer (link: http://abstractgamer.com/2007/06/16/episode-6-interview-with-mike-selinker-about-stonehenge/)
ARGNet (link: http://www.argnetcast.com/2009/09/arg-netcast-episode-103-swimming-with-lone-sharks/
Bear’s Grove (link: http://bearsgrove.com/2008/07/21/teeuwynn/)
CBS News (link: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5300816n)
CNN (link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/09/14/dcl.wired.found.cnn)
Dice Tower (link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/76747)
Fair Play (link: http://www.fairplaygames.com/interviews.asp?name=jamesernestint)
Game Design Central (link: http://www.gamedesigncentral.com/inventors/10QsMS.htm)
Game Gab (link: http://www.pulpgamer.com/myriadgames/134650/myriad-games-game-gab-origins-2009-lone-shark-games/)
Have Games, Will Travel (link: http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/have-games-will-travel-gts-2006-special-8/3857172)
Miami Herald (link: http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/1218912.html)
New York Times (link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/arts/television/21wire.html)
NPR (link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112797902)
OgreCave (link: http://ogrecave.com/interviews/mikeselinker.shtml)
One Geek to Another (link: http://www.jesshartley.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=192:in-which-we-talk-to-sharks&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=73)
Pulp Gamer (link: http://www.pulpgamer.com/insidetrack/133968/pgit-032-mike-selinker-and-lone-shark-games/)
Seattle Times (link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009760822_nicole28m.html?syndication=rss)
Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (link: http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/conan-meets-his-neighbors-pt2-062209/1128828/)
Wired (link: http://www.wired.com/video/science/highlights/1716440574/crack-the-code/19838142001

 

 

 

The Sharks

Lone Shark Games, Inc. is a collective, so we work with dozens of partners: game inventors, artists, graphic designers, marketers, event planners, event staff, and playtesters. In your interaction with Lone Shark, you may meet any of these fine folks, but you are most likely to meet these principals:

James Ernest, Founder

Mike Selinker, President

Teeuwynn Woodruff, Creative Director

 

James Ernest - James Ernest founded Cheapass Games in 1996. Through this company, James has published more than 100 original games including Origins Award winning titles Kill Doctor Lucky, Give Me The Brain, Button Men, and BRAWL. In 2003 he was awarded the Academy's first Vanguard Award for his groundbreaking design on the Diceland paper dice game. James has also done freelance game design for Wizards of the Coast, Microsoft, GAMES Magazine, and many others. He is a talented technical writer and graphic designer, with several Origins Awards for graphic design, including Button Men and BRAWL.

Mike Selinker - Mike Selinker makes puzzles for people who like games and games for people who like puzzles. As a game inventor and creative director for Wizards of the Coast starting in 1995, he crafted games based on new properties and licenses such as Harry Potter and Pokémon. Mike helped relaunch Dungeons & Dragons, Axis & Allies, and the Avalon Hill game line, and designed games such as Risk Godstorm, the Simpsons TCG, the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game, and the word game AlphaBlitz. His puzzles and puzzle articles appear regularly in GAMES Magazine, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

Teeuwynn Woodruff - Teeuwynn is an award-winning game designer, puzzle creator, rules writer, and events designer/manager. She has written dozens of roleplaying game products, and worked on the most popular collectible games, including Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and Duelmasters. In addition to her work in the hobby and puzzle arena, Teeuwynn has designed alternate reality games, casual online games, and collectible games for tween girls and young children.

Thingo!

Thingo! is an event we’ve run for years, but now we’ve turned it into a home version. It plays well for any number of people from 4 to 50. Yes, 50! Using items that the players provide, this game show in a box gives players bingo cards with categories like “Something red.” When an item is drawn at random, players may put that item in any category on their card. Five in a row wins!

 

The Big Picture

Wanna be a Hollywood mogul? Want Tom Cruise at your beck and call? The Big Picture lets you do all this and more. Players “option” scripts from a deck of the most popular movies ever made, and then attempt to make them by paying for certain elements. For example, snagging Leonardo DiCaprio and an ocean liner will help you make Titanic—that is, if you have the script for Titanic. Play The Big Picture, and get your name in lights. 

 

Contact
If you’re in need of any of the design or consultation services Lone Shark has to offer, drop a line to Mike at his email address below.

Mike Selinker: address

Teeuwynn Woodruff: address

James Ernest: address

 

Address:
24323 NE 10th St.
Sammamish, WA 98074

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