Donald X. Vaccarino (born 1969) is an American board and card
game designer. He published the card game ''
Dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
'' in 2009, which won the ''
Spiel des Jahres'' award along with many others, and has had 15 expansions. ''Dominion'' and its expansions have sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide, as of 2017.
His 2012 game ''
Kingdom Builder'' also won the ''Spiel des Jahres'' award.
With ''Dominion'', Vaccarino has been credited with pioneering the genre of
deck-building games. ''Dominion'' has been studied academically as a test-bed for how evolving game rules can create balanced play.
Vaccarino became self-employed as a game designer in 1994. He lives in
upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...
and is a trained programmer. Before his success as a game designer, Vaccarino was influenced by
Magic: The Gathering and was credited with contributing to the game in the ''Comprehensive Rules of Magic''. Vaccarino's games have been published by companies including
Rio Grande Games
Rio Grande Games is a board game publisher based in Placitas, New Mexico. The company primarily imports and localizes foreign language German-style board games.
History
In 1995, Jay Tummelson began working for Mayfair Games. At that time, May ...
and
Queen Games
Queen Games is a German publisher of tabletop games, based in Troisdorf and founded in 1992 by head Rajive Gupta, which specialises primarily in German-style, family-level games but has also published smaller numbers of both simpler, children's ga ...
.
Selected works
Vaccarino's published works include:
See also
*
List of game designers
:''This page primarily is meant to list non-video game designers. Please see list of computer and video game industry people for a list of well-known video game designers.''
A game designer is a person who invents games at the conceptual level. ...
*
List of Game of the Year awards (board games)
Game of the Year (abbreviated GotY) is a title awarded by various magazines, websites, and shows to a deserving game. Many publications award a single "Game of the Year" to a single title that they feel represents the pinnacle of gaming achievemen ...
References
External links
Donald X. Vaccarino on BoardGameGeekDonald X. Vaccarino on BoardGameAtlas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaccarino, Donald X.
American game designers
Living people
1969 births
Board game designers