Mike Young (game designer)
Mike Young is a game designer, author, and founder of the first independent professional LARP publishing house, "Interactivities Ink". He is the originator of 'Young's Law', which states "LARPS are sold by word of mouth", which has been generalized within small publisher organizations such as the GPA to 'games are sold by word of mouth'.
Works
Mass Market
His works include co-authorship of 'Rules to Live By' (RTLB), one of the few published generic (non-license not from tabletop) LARP system. He has also published several LARPs and several card games. He also contributed many short pieces to the professional LARP journal "Metagame" from 1989 through 1999.
Within the scope of RTLB publishing, Interactivities Ink produced a Supernatural supplement book and several adventures as well as a general LARP guide, 'The Book of LARP'. Interactivities Ink folded as a publishing house in 2004 in part due to the collapse of Wizard's Attic. Mike is currently developing RTLB revised for Talisman Publishing
His "The Galactic Emperor is Dead" LARP was sold to Skotos Inc for their online game play (ref: [1]).
Mike's "Tales From the Floating Vagabond Square Root of Pi" (1997) was an officially licensed LARP run in the Tales from the Floating Vagabond RPG setting originally published by Avalon Hill.
He has also authored computer games (from Alien Software), including the PC games "Neophyte" and "Koplio's Story".
Mike has also published three card games, one of which, Hamlet: A Game In Five Acts, won an award in the Polycon Independent Game Design Contest. The game was written after Young saw an amateur production of the Shakespeare play.
In addition to designing games and LARP punditry , Mike current works for Biap Systems as a computer programmer. Mike was the lead developer for "NBC Olympics Now," which has been nominated for a Technology & Engineering Award (Emmy) from from the National Television Academy in the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for the Synchronous Enhancement of Original Television Content."
Niche Market
Mike has also had two entries published in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Writing Contest (Dark and Stormy Night).
His first work, Miskatonic Class Reunion (1989) has been run over 20 times from 1989-1999 and has been made available to others to run, but has not yet seen publication. It ha a sequel, "Miskatonic Archaeological Expedition" (1994).
Mike's work, Tempus Frangit, won the 2005 "Iron GM" award at Intercon 20.
His theatre-style Dark Summonings Campaign established the non-boffer campaign model now used for a variety of US larps, including [[
Influences
He is credited by RPGnet columnist Sandy Antunes as being the progenitor of campaign theatre-style games. Whereas theatre-style typically ran for one-shot events, Dark Summonings ran for two years and spawned several east coast US LARP campaigns (some of which used 'RTLB', others which did not). RTLB is still used in many US theatre-style campaigns, including the 2002-2007 steampunk "Brassy's Men," the 2006- "Threads of Damocles", and the 2006- science fiction "Void Stalkers".
He is a strong evangelist for LARP and has run LARP activities at GenCon, Origins, InterCon, and Arisia conventions, among others. He has served as a guest speaker on panels in those conventions.
Personal Life
Besides playing games of all sorts, Mike enjoys roller coasters and theme parks, and is an improv comedian. He performs regularly with the improv comedy troupe, The Screaming Puppets. Mike married Laura Christina Nold Young on April 9, 2005.