Zev Shlasinger is a scriptwriter,

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

and game publisher. He is primarily known for founding

Z-Man Games Z-Man Games is an American board game company, incorporated in 1999. It was named after its founder, Zev Shlasinger. The company is known for their ''Pandemic'' series of board games, as well as being the sole publisher for the English editions of ...

, which became the publisher of the '' Pandemic'' series of board games, as well as being the sole publisher for the English editions of popular Eurogames, such as ''

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Au ...

'' and ''

Terra Mystica ''Terra Mystica'' is a Euro-style board game for two to five players designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens Drögemüller. The game was first published by Feuerland Spiele in Germany in 2012, and was later published in English and French by Zman G ...

''.

Early life

Zev Shlasinger became interested in board games and

board wargames A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board game, board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby (as distinct from military e ...

while in school.

Screenwriter

After school, Shlasinger turned to screenwriting, creating the script for ''Flesh-Eating Mothers'', a horror movie in which a virus turns suburban housewives into cannibals. Critics generally panned the movie and the script with comments like "amateurish", "knowingly bad script", and "So woodenly acted and scripted that gore scenes are laughable rather than frightening." In 1994, Shlasinger wrote the script for the murder mystery movie ''Playback''.

Z-Man Games

In 2000, Shlasinger founded Z-Man Games, primarily to republish the discontinued collectible card game (CCG) ''

Shadowfist ''Shadowfist'' was created by Robin Laws and Jose Garcia. It was released in June 1995 as a collectible card game (CCG), but was shifted to a fixed distribution of cards as of 2013. It shares the same background as the ''Feng Shui'' role-pla ...

''. From there, Shlasinger's company published other CCGs such as ''WWF Raw Deal'', and became the English-language licensee of several popular

Eurogames The EuroGames are an LGBT multi-sport event in Europe, licensed by the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation to a local city host each year and organised (most often) by one or more of the federation's member clubs. Similar to the Gay Gam ...

. Z-Man Games became the publisher of the ''Pandemic'' series of games in 2008, which subsequently won the 2009 ''Golden Geek Best Family Board Game'', as well as being a finalist for the 2009 ''

Spiel des Jahres The Spiel des Jahres (, ''Game of the Year'') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence ...

''. In 2009, Shlasinger was the Special Guest at UK Games Expo in Birmingham. In 2011, Sophie Gravel, owner of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

-based publisher/distributor Filosofia, bought Z-Man Games, and Shlasinger left in 2016, to join WizKids as Head of Board Game Operations.

References

American game designers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{designer-stub