Matt Leacock is an American board game designer, most known for cooperative games such as
Pandemic
A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...
,
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1,
Forbidden Island
''Forbidden Island'' is a 1959 American adventure crime film directed by Charles B. Griffith starring Jon Hall. It was his debut as director, although he had directed second unit on ''Attack of the Crab Monsters''. A young Don Preston from the ...
and
Forbidden Desert.
Early life
Leacock grew up in
Long Lake, Minnesota. He studied visual communication at
Northern Illinois University.
Career
Matt designed ''Pandemic'', published in 2008 by
Z-Man Games. Leacock had previously worked as a developer of social media and as a user experience designer, primarily in community and communications products
for
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
and
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
. He switched to designing board games full time in July 2014.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, which Leacock co-designed with
Rob Daviau
Rob Daviau is an American game designer known for creating legacy board gaming.
Career
He has guest lectured at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, and New York University on game design and has been a visitin ...
, has been rated very highly among board gamers and by the website
Board Game Geek
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition t ...
on its board game rankings.
His latest games are Pandemic Fall of Rome and Forbidden Sky (both released in 2018).
Leacock is developing a tabletop game about
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, ''
Daybreak''.
Games
* ''
Pandemic
A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...
'' (2008)
* ''
Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age'' (2008)
* ''
Pandemic: On the Brink'' (Expansion) (2009)
* ''
Forbidden Island
''Forbidden Island'' is a 1959 American adventure crime film directed by Charles B. Griffith starring Jon Hall. It was his debut as director, although he had directed second unit on ''Attack of the Crab Monsters''. A young Don Preston from the ...
'' (2010)
* ''
Forbidden Desert'' (2013)
* ''
Pandemic: In The Lab'' (Expansion) (2013)
* ''
Pandemic: The Cure'' (2014)
* ''
Pandemic: State of Emergency'' (Expansion) (2015)
* ''
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1'' (2015)
* ''
Thunderbirds'' (2015)
* ''
Knit Wit
Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine.
Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...
'' (2016)
* ''
Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu'' (2016)
* ''
Pandemic Iberia'' (2016)
* ''
Chariot Race'' (2016)
* ''
Space Escape
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
'' (formerly ''Mole Rats in Space'') (2017)
* ''
Pandemic: Rising Tide'' (2017)
* ''
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2'' (2017)
* ''
Pandemic Fall of Rome'' (2018)
* ''
Forbidden Sky'' (2018)
* ''
Era: Medieval Age'' (2019)
* ''
Pandemic Legacy: Season 0'' (2020)
* ''
Daybreak'' (upcoming)
* ''Forbidden Jungle'' (upcoming)
Charity
According to Leacock, 5% of his design royalty for Pandemic products is donated directly to
Medecins Sans Frontieres.
References
Living people
American game designers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
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