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Ted Alspach

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Ted Alspach
Born (1968-02-01) February 1, 1968 (age 56)
New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Game Designer, Founder of Bezier Games
Known forWerewords, Ultimate Werewolf, One Night Ultimate Werewolf Series, Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Ted Alspach is an American game designer and CEO of Bezier Games, Inc. He is best known as the designer of Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Suburbia, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Ultimate Werewolf, and Werewords. Alspach is also one of the world's leading experts on Adobe Illustrator. He served as its Group Product Manager for several releases and published 18 books on it over the course of 20 years.

Early life and education

Alspach was born in New York on February 1, 1968, and grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He credits his father and grandfather with instilling in him a love of board games from a very early age. He received a B.S. in Marketing from Messiah College in Grantham, PA. While there, he founded and published a school magazine there, The Grand Tham, funded entirely by local business advertisements.

Career

As a college senior, Alspach interned at Laser Graphics 2000, one of the country's first graphics service bureaus. This turned into an opportunity in system design and training as the small company transitioned into Teeple Graphics (which enabled printing and graphics companies to move from analog to digital tools). During this time, Alspach designed two popular typefaces: RansomNote and LeftyCasual, the latter of which has been used for branding for Comedy Central, Pixar, and Levi Strauss & Co.

Writing

As a result of developing training curriculum, Alspach began writing reviews and how-to articles for magazines such as MacAddict and Macworld. He published his first book, The Macworld Illustrator Bible, in 1995, which contained a foreword written by Pierre Bézier. Over the next several years, Alspach wrote more than 30 books on graphics and desktop publishing, including the bestselling Illustrator For Dummies series.

Product Management

Alspach worked at Adobe as Group Product Manager for Illustrator and the Creative Suite from 1999 to 2006. He oversaw the release of Illustrator 9, 10, CS, CS2, and Creative Suite CS, CS2, and was responsible for many transformative Illustrator features including Live Effects, Transparency, Envelopes, and the integration of Adobe Dimensions 3D software into Illustrator. At Adobe, he also authored a patent for vector-based flares.

Alspach also worked in product management at Intuit and Corel, as well as gamification software company Bunchball, before leaving the software industry completely in 2013.

Bezier Games, Inc.

Alspach's journey in the game industry began with publishing several expansions for Age of Steam. He founded Bezier Games in 2006 with the release of Start Player.

Alspach's games range from social deduction and party games to mid-weight strategy games. He has carved out a unique niche with werewolf themed games, from Ultimate Werewolf to Werewords to the Silver series of card games. Alspach is credited as having designed over 80 stand-alone games and expansions.

Bezier Games, Inc. now publishes many games designed by Alspach, as well as other distinguished designers such as Tom Lehmann, Freidemann Friese, Scott Caputo, and Rob Daviau. In addition to being the CEO of Bezier Games, Inc., Alspach continues to design new games and to develop titles from other designers.

Awards

Suburbia and Castles of Mad King Ludwig won the Mensa Select award. His 2015 title One Night Ultimate Werewolf was on the Spiel des Jahres Recommended list due to its revolutionary app integration. In 2019, Werewords was a Spiel des Jahres finalist.

Game list

The following are the games and game expansions designed by Alspach, including original publication date:

Book list

The following are the books written by Alspach, including original publication date (English versions only):

  • Macworld Illustrator 5.0/5.5 Bible 1994
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to QuarkXPress 1994
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to Photoshop 1994
  • Microsoft Bob 1995
  • Internet E-Mail Quick Tour 1995
  • The Mac Internet Tour Guide 1995
  • Macworld Illustrator 6 Bible 1996
  • Official Kai's Power Tools Studio Secrets 1996
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to Word on the Macintosh 1996
  • Photoshop 4 Complete 1997
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to PageMaker 1997
  • Acrobat 3 Visual QuickStart Guide 1997
  • Illustrator Filter Finesse 1997
  • Illustrator 7 Bible 1997
  • PageMaker 6.5 for Windows Visual QuickStart Guide 1997
  • PageMaker 6.5 for Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide 1997
  • ImageReady Visual QuickStart Guide 1998
  • Illustrator Effects Magic 1998
  • PhotoDeluxe 2 Visual QuickStart Guide 1998
  • Illustrator 7 Studio Secrets 1998
  • Illustrator 8 Bible 1998
  • PageMaker 6.5 Plus for Windows Visual QuickStart Guide 1999
  • PDF with Acrobat 4 Visual QuickStart Guide 1999
  • PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 4 for Windows Visual QuickStart Guide 2000
  • Illustrator 9 for Dummies 2000
  • Illustrator 9 Bible 2000
  • PageMaker 7 for Windows and Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide 2001
  • Illustrator 10 Bible 2002
  • Illustrator CS for Dummies 2003
  • Illustrator CS Bible 2003
  • Illustrator CS2 Bible 2005
  • Illustrator CS3 Bible 2007
  • Illustrator CS4 for Dummies 2008
  • Illustrator CS4 Bible 2008
  • Illustrator CS5 Bible 2010
  • Board 2 Pieces: Of Dice and Meeples 2011
  • Board 2 Pieces: Something Smells Gamey 2011
  • One Night Ultimate Compendium 2017

References

  • "Ted Alspach | Board Game Designer | BoardGameGeek". boardgamegeek.com. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • Villa, Isaac (January 26, 2021). "Designer Interview: Ted Alspach". Gaming With Sidekicks. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Ted Alspach | Dice Tower News". www.dicetowernews.com. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Interview: Ted Alspach, designer of Suburbia and the One Night series". Diagonal Move. January 29, 2021. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Werwörter". Spiel des Jahres. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Ted Alspach". Casual Game Revolution. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Interview: Ted Alspach, Designer of Suburbia and One Night Ultimate Werewolf | BoardGameGeek News". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Designer Diary: Simultaneously Designing Silver and Silver Bullet | BoardGameGeek News". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Designer Diary: Silver | BoardGameGeek News". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  • "Designer Diary: New York Slice, or Today's Pizza Originated in San Marco | BoardGameGeek News". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
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