This month Sophie’s talking to Danielle Reynolds, a Chicagoland designer that co-hosts design meetups, organizes gaming fundraisers and pitches at conventions. She has spent the past 2 years diving into the industry and all that it offers.

John Mizon runs South West Megagames, a full-time endeavour that aims to bring megagaming to the South-West of the UK (and sometimes beyond). Megagames are still a surprisingly niche hobby, which have started to see more mainstream appeal in the last few years after a Shut Up & Sit Down video brought many new eyes to the genre. These games are massive day-long experiences that blend roleplaying, board game-style mechanics, social gameplay and model-UN style simulation to a venue filled with anywhere from 30 to 300 players. Though the themes of games can range from sci-fi colony planets all the way to medieval courts, the unifying feature is simulating a massive, confusing crisis or conflict, and seeing how the existing structures and factions deal with the challenges of information and communication that the situation brings.