Matt Leacock
American board game designer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Matt Leacock is an American board game designer, most known for cooperative games such as Pandemic, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert.[1][2]
Matt Leacock | |
|---|---|
Matt Leacock at Lucca Comics & Games 2018 | |
| Occupation | Game designer |
| Notable work | Pandemic, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert |
| Website | http://www.leacock.com/ |
Early life
Leacock grew up in Long Lake, Minnesota.[3] He studied visual communication at Northern Illinois University.[4]
Career
Matt designed Pandemic, published in 2008 by Z-Man Games.[5] Leacock had previously worked as a developer of social media[6] and as a user experience designer, primarily in community and communications products[7] for AOL and Yahoo.[8] 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.[9][10] 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.[11]
Games
- Pandemic (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)[9]
- Thunderbirds (2015)
- Knit Wit (2016)
- Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu (2016)
- Pandemic Iberia (2016)
- Chariot Race (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)
- The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship (2025)
Charity
According to Leacock, 5% of his design royalty for Pandemic products is donated directly to Medecins Sans Frontieres.[7][12]
