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 a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...
,
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1,
Forbidden Island and
Forbidden Desert.
Early life
Leacock grew up in
Long Lake, Minnesota. He studied visual communication at
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded as "Northern Illinois State Normal School" in 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, initially to provide the state with c ...
.
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 and
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
. He switched to designing board games full time in July 2014.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, which Leacock co-designed with
Rob Daviau, has been rated very highly among board gamers and by the website
Board Game Geek on its board game rankings.
His latest game, Daybreak is about climate change, and won The Best Board or Tabletop Game for Impact at the 2024
Games for Change Festival.
Games
* ''
Pandemic
A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...
'' (2008)
* ''
Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age'' (2008)
* ''
Pandemic: On the Brink'' (Expansion) (2009)
* ''
Forbidden Island'' (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'' (2016)
* ''
Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu'' (2016)
* ''
Pandemic Iberia'' (2016)
* ''
Chariot Race
Chariot racing (, ''harmatodromía''; ) was one of the most popular Ancient Greece, ancient Greek, Roman Empire, Roman, and Byzantine Empire, Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games from ...
'' (2016)
* ''
Space Escape'' (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)
* ''
Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West'' (2023)
* ''
Daybreak'' (2023)
* ''Forbidden Jungle'' (2023)
* ''Flickering Stars'' (2024)
* ''Ziggurat'' (2024)
* ''Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West'' (2024)
* ''The Problem with Purrballs'' (2024)
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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