Tom Jolly (born April 8, 1954) is an American

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

Career

Tom Jolly's games include ''

Wiz-War ''Wiz-War'' is a four-player board game created by Tom Jolly and first published in 1985 through Jolly’s company, Jolly Games. It is described as a " beer and pretzels game". The board in ''Wiz-War'' is made up of individual segments that fo ...

'', ''

Drakon DRAKON () is a Free and open-source software, free and open source algorithmic visual programming language, visual programming and modeling language developed as part of the defunct Soviet Union Buran program, Buran space program in 1986 ...

'', '' Cavetroll'', ''Light Speed'', ''Camelot'', ''Cargo'', and he co-designed '' DiskWars'' and ''Vortex/Maelstrom''. Additional games he has designed include '' Gootmu'', ''

Knots A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines. Knot or knots may also refer to: Other common meanings * Knot (unit), of speed * Knot (wood), a timber imperfection Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Knots'' (film), a 2004 film * ''Kn ...

'', '' WayWord'', and '' Got It!''. The publisher of Wiz-War,

Chessex Chessex Manufacturing is an American company that sells dice, primarily for the role-playing game (RPG) and collectible card game (CCG) market. It also offers other accessories used in RPGs and CCGs. The company also has a Chessex Europe branch o ...

, printed the fourth through the 7th editions of Wiz-War.The seventh edition, came out in 1997. The eighth edition was released by publisher Fantasy Flight Games in 2012. The first expansion set, Malefic Curses, came out in January 2014. The ninth edition will be released by ''

Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the cr ...

''.

Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game developer based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing game, role-playing, board game, board, card game, card, and dice game, dice games. As of 2014, it is a division of ...

published Jolly's ''DiskWars'' game in 1998, and a later fusion of the game was made with

Alderac Entertainment Group Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) is a publisher of family board game products. AEG was formed by Jolly Blackburn in 1993. Blackburn left the company in 1995 and the majority of the company is now owned by President & CEO John Zinser. The comp ...

Rokugan Legend of the Five Rings (often abbreviated ''L5R'') is a fictional setting created by John Zinser, Dave Seay, Ryan Dancey, Dave Williams, DJ Trindle, Matt Wilson and John Wick and first published by a joint venture between Alderac Entertainm ...

setting resulting in ''DiskWars: Legend of the Five Rings'' (2000), and another mashup with

Pinnacle Entertainment Group Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a publisher of role-playing games and wargames. History Shane Lacy Hensley wanted to create a 19th-century miniatures game so he contacted the company Chameleon Eclectic to get the game published. As a result '' Fi ...

's ''

Deadlands ''Deadlands'' is a genre-mixing alternate history role-playing game which combines the Western and horror genres, with some steampunk elements. The original game was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group i ...

'' which resulted in ''Doom Town Range Wars'' (2000). In January 2014, Diskwars was yet again revived in the form of Warhammer:Diskwars, combining Diskwars mechanics with the Warhammer fantasy world. Tom Jolly has also written several short Science Fiction and Fantasy stories published by a variety of on-line and paper magazines. He has also designed over 40 puzzles, produced by a number of companies and woodcrafters around the world. Jolly lives in California with his wife, having retired from his career as an electrical engineer.

References

1954 births Living people American board game designers {{US-engineer-stub