Yuzo Koshiro

A true video game music legend, Yuzo Koshiro is one of the most well respected video game composers of all time, deeply loved for both his dancey FM tunes as well as his orchestral epics. Since his debut with Falcom, Koshiro has gone on to compose for some of the biggest games in video game history, including Ys, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Shenmue, Actraiser, and many more. Along with his family, he runs the successful developer studio ANCIENT, and has composed video game music for nearly 30 years. Get ready to light up the streets and dance with your fellow demon beasts, because Koshiro will be keep it groovin’ on the dancefloor.

Kinuyo Yamashita

MAGFest is proud to announce our first honored guest for MAGFest 11, Kinuyo Yamashita.
Yamashita made her mark on the video game industry after her graduation from University, as she walked into the offices of Konami and began her long career as a video game music composer. Her first project for the company became one of their most popular games of all time, Akumajou Dracula, released as Castlevania outside of Japan. With her roots in classical piano combined with a youthful spirit, her music for Castlevania took the video game industry by storm, combining catchy action rhythms with eerie atmosphere to create a unique and timeless sound. Since then, she has become a prolific composer, working on titles such as Power Blade and Mega Man X3, as well as contributing music to various big projects including dondonpachi DAI-OU-JOU and GEONDAN.

It is with great pride and excitement that we welcome Kinuyo Yamashita into the MAGFest family.

Robert V. Aldrich

Robert V Aldrich is a novelist and serialist who specializes in literary entertainment geared towards anime and video game fans. When he isn't writing for various periodicals and websites or complaining about modern gaming control schemes like the crotchety old man he totally is, he's taking on the most important questions of our age: Tifa Lockhart vs Chun-Li. He's returned to MAGFest as part of the Intellectuals Track and will be sitting on or hosting panels all weekend. His newest book - Rhest For The Wicked - is expected out in June, but the relaunch of his serial classic Teach The Sky is available now online at TeachTheSky.com.

Derek Alexander

Best known as the Happy Video Game Nerd, Derek Alexander has been a trusted voice in the Retro Gaming community for over 5 years. What started as a simple parody grew into a body of work examining the lesser-known classics of Old School Gaming. Crafting some of the Internet's most comprehensive reviews, Derek has produced videos for games like Earthbound, Gargoyle's Quest, and Splatterhouse; retro throwback titles like Mega Man 9; and even given terrible games like Charlie's Angels and Resident Evil Survivor another shot at redemption. He has been a part of Retroware TV for most of his career. Derek is also one half of prolific electronic group Starship Amazing, and is cohost of the Nothing Matters Podcast ("Alaska's Best Podcast"). When not making reviews, music, or podcasts, Derek works as an Independent Audio/Video Contractor in his native Anchorage, Alaska. He still would prefer you didn't talk to him about politics.

Blue Core Studios

Known for the hit feature-length "MegaMan" fan film, Director Eddie Lebron with Producer David and Daniel Horowitz are the key members of the New York based production company "Blue Core Studios" (formerly know as SollarSystems Studios). Their biggest current project is the live action Sonic the Hedgehog fan film starring Jaleel White as the voice of "Sonic". Their other video game fan films include "CVC: Chun-Li vs. Cammy", "Metal Slug: The Movie" starring internet comedian Nathan Barnatt and the web short "Metal Gear Office". This marks their 5th MagFest visit

Brent "brentalfloss" Black

Brent Black, also known as “brentalfloss”, is a comedian, musician, and gamer. He is best known on the internet as the creator of the “With Lyrics” series, where he adds satirical lyrics to classic video game tunes. He first gained notoriety in 2008 with the release of “Mega Man 3 With Lyrics”. Since then, he has expanded his base of Youtube subscribers to over 150,000, released albums that reached #4 and #8 on the iTunes comedy charts, and has appeared at gaming and anime events all over the world.

Karen Carbone

Karen is a voice actor, stunt woman and actor and is thrilled to be a part of her first MAGFest! She has been fortunate enough to have had a baby with Liam Neeson (as Catherine the mother), earned a lot of caps (as the majority of the hookers) and created her favorite character Moira Brown in Fallout 3. She also brought to life several roles in The Hunted and AMF Bowling. Karen has recorded countless characters (mostly lots of little boys and more hookers) in numerous audio books with the Cutting Corporation in Bethesda, MD. She currently is the host of two cable shows in Northern Virginia, neither of which have anything to do with hookers. Some of her favorite onscreen stunt /acting credits include "Homicide", "The Wire", "America's Most Wanted" and "The Kill Point" - in which she usually played hookers who get beat up and killed. Until her vast fan base demands the return of Moira Brown to another video game, Karen will continue to supplement her acting income through her party entertainment company, Carbone Entertainment, providing all kinds of fun stuff for parties...except of course, for hookers.

Vincent Diamante

Vincent Diamante is: a video game music composer and sound designer, currently hanging on as Audio Director at thatgamecompany. Previously, he did: music and sound design on Skullgirls (Reverge Labs, XBLA/PSN), Flower (Sony/thatgamecompany, PSN), and a bunch of mobile phone games (S60, J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile, etc.) back when playing games on your cell phone was only slightly more fun than having to deal with the various phone platforms.. Before that, he was: a somewhat mixed video game person who dabbled in video game journalism, talk radio, art, and education along with smooth jazz piano arrangements of video games few care about. Nowadays, he: teaches board game design and audio design to cinema students at the University of Southern California and writes wind and brass parts in obnoxious ranges. When he's not annoyingly overusing colons, he: takes photographs of video game developers, records podcasts, collects internet domain names, plays Steel Battalion (the original!), and finds love blooming on the battlefield.

The last time he was at MAGFest (in 2008!), he had: way too much fun in the Jamspace. If you see him in the room and ask nicely, you can: totally borrow his keytar.

Dragon's Den Unlimited

Miguel and Alison kick reason to the curb and push forward everyday to grab a bigger piece of the mysterious future that game development offers. They have released games on Nintendo DS/DSi, iOS and Android Platforms. Miguel's latest project "Battle of The Bulge: Crisis in Command" is available now in the App Store. Next up is "Crisis Heart Brawlers: Clash at Otakon"!

As a studio Dragon’s Den loves to revamp classic mechanics with fun new twists. Match 3? How about Match 3D. SHMUP? They’ll do Left 4 Dead StarFox. Need a giant sword? They’ll swing mountains.

Alison's designs have been featured at many anime conventions (Otakon, Katsucon, AMA, Nekocon). She's put out two comics, and has been drawing commissions for over 10 years. Miguel is a fierce coder bubbling over with positive energy, and even does some coloring (but is most useful in fetching the coffee). Together they are an unstoppable killing machine, especially if you happen to be blank and rectangular. Check 'em out in the Artist's Alley where they'd love to talk games, show off secret demos, or draw anything you'd like!

Luke Esquivel

Luke Esquivel, known by his stage name A_Rival, is an electronic music producer/programmer/dancer/rapper hailing from the California Bay Area. His current projects include scoring the new Capcom game Street Fighter X Mega Man and programming his self-developed indie title Senor Footsies.

Extra Credits

James Portnow and Daniel Floyd make up half of the team behind Extra Credits, a weekly series on PATV that attempts to take a deeper look at how games are made, what they mean, and how we can make them better. James (the show's writer) is a game designer who has worked with a wide variety of studios and now runs his own game design consulting firm called Rainmaker Games. Daniel (the editor and high-pitched voice) is an animator at Pixar Canada. Between the demands of the show and their day jobs, it is a miracle these two find time to do anything.

Having now been witness to the exotic wonders of MAGFest, they can't wait to once again somehow make their panel last three hours.

Kan Gao

Kan (a.k.a. Reives) is the director and composer at Freebird Games, and is the hooligan behind story-driven titles including To the Moon and The Mirror Lied. He enjoys writing, composing, basking in his own pretention, and singing in the shower – often all at the same time. He spends the remainder of his spare time meditating beneath a waterfall in Canada, which fuels his insatiable thirst for players’ delicious tears. He is currently working on the 2nd episode of To the Moon’s series.

Chris Geehan

One half of HyperDuck SoundWorks, a 2 man team of composers/sound designers for video games, Chris Geehan hails from Ireland. He's worked on such titles as BiteJacker, A.R.E.S: Extinction Agenda, Iji, Dust: An Elysian Tail and is currently doing work with Penny Arcades next game 'Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4', Paul Greasleys 'Under the Ocean' and Mojangs second title 'Scrolls'. While his work takes up a lot of his time, he always has time for the creature, the creature being a good whiskey, and time being thirst.

Psychicpebbles

Psychicpebbles is an online Flash animator and super mega hot buff guy who works out basically daily, and you can tell because his pecs are mega hard just ask any girl I swear. He sometimes gives his opinion on popular events and trends. He sometimes works with other sort-of-online-famous OneyNG who makes videos too. They created Hellbenders together. I'm not gay don't fucking ask.

Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson

Arin is the creator of the 'awesome' flash cartoon series. When asked for a bio, he instead replied with this:

"I wanna be so funny here, and people are like 'gimme a bio of you' so I know I gotta step up my game, but really I'm a piece of shit at writing ironic self masturbatory prose and I just say fuck it and usually say something like 'I make dumb cartoons' but then that comes off as like, the ultimate concise self masturbatory ironic prose bullshit so FUCK IT. I'M GUNNA BE AT MAGFEST WHO WANTS TO GIVE ME A HIGHFIVE MAN FREE HIGHFIVES."

Dr. Chris Hazard

Buffalo buffalo Dr. Hazard buffalos buffalo Buffalo buffalo. When not buffaloing buffalo, Chris runs Hazardous Software, makers of the time travel RTS Achron and developers of serious games (if the Ender's Game movie is ever released, more people will be aware of serious games and he won't continue to blatantly inadvertently spoil the book when he gives talks on the matter). Chris brings advanced math and microeconomics to places where it doesn't belong, like trust, reputation, game mechanics, and psychology, often with some surprising results. After
being a software architect in cell phone infrastructure at Motorola, he obtained his PhD in computer science at NC State, first working in economic-based models for combinatorial optimization for warehouse robotics and then on his work on the artificial intelligence of trust and reputation.
Dr. Hazard also consults and speaks widely on the mathematics
of game design and game mechanic analysis, and has given keynote speeches
at major military conferences. He is rumored to be working on some new super secret game engine that has a disruptive innovation, something completely different than time travel...

Chris Huelsbeck

For his entire career, Chris Hülsbeck has been a true pioneer in the video game industry. Whether it's how one made video game music with the TFMX format, or how music was used in a video game to create atmosphere and tension, Hülsbeck is a living legend and a true innovator, who’s futuristic and catchy melodies took the world by storm. With games such as Turrican, Giana Sisters and R-Type, his unforgettable scores have become some of the most beloved video game music of all time, and it is for that reason we are honored to welcome Chris Hülsbeck to MAGFest 11! With a career that spans over 20 years, experience ranging from Amiga, C64, SNES, PC Engine and beyond, Hülsbeck will be on hand to share his story and do what he does best; inspire a new generation.

Interrobang Studios

Interrobang Studios is a small press comics team built on the foundation of the artworks of Kevin Bolk.

Kevin Bolk (K-Bo to his fans) is a freelance cartoonist, illustrator, and proud alumnus of Awesome University (his favorite imaginary alma mater). Although he’s done work for Nickelodeon, Tokyopop, Udon Entertainment, Blind Ferret Entertainment, and Voices For, he's best known for his parody
webcomics “It Sucks to be Weegie” and “Ensign Sue Must Die!” as part of Interrobang Studios’ Pot Luck Comics as well as "I'm My Own Mascot" (www.mascotcomic.com) and the fantasy send-up, Trigger Star (www.triggerstar.com). His work has also been featured on MTV.com, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Cracked, Comics Alliance, and The Daily Dot.

His partner, Sarah Martinez, has spent her adult life working in comics and behind the scenes in the industry. She ran a store for 4 years, works in Comic Distribution, and founded Interrobang Studios with Kevin. She inks and writes for Trigger Star & draws the goofy silent monster comic Spinks!(www.spinkspink.com). Look for her panels which focus on the practicalities of comics and art as business.

The team has been putting out comics online for over 7 years at Interrobang Studios (http://www.interrobangstudios.com) and have been staples of the East Coast convention circuit since 2009. Kevin likes cookies, Sarah likes muffins.

Jon "JonTron" Jafari

Jon Jafari is a guy! That's what he said to me once! He is more well known as the creator of the webseries 'JonTron'. What's more, Jon has recently teamed up with prolific animator Arin 'Egoraptor' Hanson (who incidentally is also a guest!) to create the YouTube channel 'Game Grumps'. Also, Jon doesn't like writing about himself in third person.

Wes Johnson

Wes Johnson likes cheese, but his SKYRIM alter ego Sheogorath seems to love it! HE also sleeps rather soundly for a murderer. Or wait, maybe that's one of his characters. The lines tend to blur. Wes was the guy who welcomed you off the boat in Bethesda Softwork's "MORROWIND." He was both the Criminal Scum and the Guards who arrested them in "OBLIVION," and was the Emperor, a murderous ghost, a Daedric Madman and mush mouthed, blue, blobby God in"SKYRIM."
Between his journeys through Cyrodil and the like, Wes wandered the Wastelands as Fawkes and Mr Burke in "FALLOUT 3," fought famous Starship Captains as Klingons in "STAR TREK: LEGACY and CONQUEST, and has been proudly UNLEASHING THE FURY and calling goals for the Washington Capitals since the turn of the Century. Wes has been SEEN as well as heard in feature films such as John Waters' "A Dirty Shame," Chris Rock's "Head of State," "The Invasion," "For Richer or Poorer," and has made appearances on HBO's "The Wire," and NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street."
A comedian and impressionist, Wes worked morning radio at WHFS-FM, was the comedy co-host on a national radio show with the late Wolfman Jack, and has performed songs on "The Doctor Demento Show." In the end, Wes is happiest about his role as husband to Kim and father to Ben, Sam and Max. He DOES NOT actually live in a mansion, but fakes it well on YouTube.

Jake "virt" Kaufman

Jake "virt" Kaufman is a composer and sound designer for games, having worked on such titles as Contra 4, Red Faction: Guerrilla, and WayForward's "Mighty" series (Milky Way / Flip Champs / Switch Force) and more recently Double Dragon Neon. He started out as a chiptune musician and an arranger of game soundtracks, and remains active in these communities, strongly believing in the free sharing of music and knowledge. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kris and his dog Nugget, both of whom are famed for their own pursuits (chiptune radio and freeze-dried beef liver, respectively).

Spazkid

Hi im Spazkid, I do NSFW cartoons about farting and pooping and most my stuff is mean and insulting because im not nice.

John Patrick Lowrie

John Patrick Lowrie was born in 1952 in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Boulder, Colorado. At 16 he left home to make his way as a singer/guitarist/flautist/trombonist in a rock ‘n’ roll band, sleeping in parks and communes and getting to know several hippies. Surviving the draft, he graduated with highest distinction from the Indiana University School of Music and for a few years managed to make a living as a composer and guitarist in his acoustic fusion duo The Kiethe Lowrie Duet, garnering critical acclaim and opening for people who were much more famous than he was. He then decided to become an actor because the pay was better and the work was steadier. To this day he remains the only person he knows of who has done this. He met Ellen McLain, his wife of twenty-four years, in Arnhem, Holland on a European tour of a Broadway show and started his acting career in Palermo, Italy telling jokes to an opera house full of Sicilians who didn’t speak English. Success continues to dog his heels like an angry Pekinese.
John and his wife now reside in Seattle, where they divide their professional time between acting in live theater and voice acting for computer games and radio dramas. He is most well known for his work as The Sniper in Team Fortress 2 and has appeared in over 25 games including DOTA 2 (Pudge, Storm Spirit, Dark Seer and others), Lord of the Rings: The War in the North (Belaram), Halo: Reach (Sword Control), Halo: ODST (Kinsler), Left 4 Dead, Infamous (Warden Harms), F.E.A.R.: Project Origin (Harold Keegan), Half-life 2, and The Matrix OnLine (Agent Gray). His wife, Ellen McLain, won the 2011 VGA for 'best performance by a human female' as the voice of GLaDOS in Portal 2.

His first science-fiction novel, Dancing with Eternity, received the ForeWord Firsts Award for debut fiction and was #8 on Tor.com's Reader's Choice Awards for 2011.

Chris "Oney" O'Neill

Oney has been doing various videos for Youtube and Newgrounds over the last few years. Such hits include Left 4 Speed, Leo and Satan, Super Slumber Party and Dragonzball P. He recently joined forces with Psychicpebbles to create their own original series HELLBENDERS, for which they both write , animate, compose and voice act. Oney will be doing the animator's panel with Egoraptor, Spazkid, HappyHarry and Psychicpebbles.

OverClocked ReMix

Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. They've seen some people automatically hate VGM that have lyrics, that are metal, or that are dubstep. But they love them ALL like their children. LALALA, WUBWUBWUB, \m/

Retroware TV

Retroware TV is the home for the greatest retro gaming shows on the web. Retroware delves into all aspects of classic gaming knowledge -- From the search for great retro deals with The Game Chasers, to history series and retrospectives with The Video Game Years, The Gaming Historian & 16-Bit Gems. In depth classic reviews by Happy Video Game Nerd, Pat The NES Punk & Let’s Get. PC gaming with Lazy Game Reviews. Gaming music by The Humans Are Coming. As well video game toys with From Pixels To Plastic, arcade gaming with Strictly Arcade, portable with Video Game Take Out plus written articles, podcasts, user submissions, profile pages and much more. If you’re a classic gamer and not on RetrowareTV.com, then you’re really not a classic gamer and all your base are belong to us. So visit RetrowareTV.com and a winner is you!

James Rolfe

James Rolfe is the mastermind behind Cinemassacre.com, a popular internet destination for comedic, nostalgic and informative pop culture entertainment. He has created more than 300 films in his career, and has become an icon in the gaming world with his hit web series “The Angry Video Game Nerd”. Thanks to his foul-mouthed and bitter Angry Video Game Nerd character, he has amassed an impressive cult following that has allowed him to turn his love of cinema into a career. In addition to his nostalgic video game critiques, James tackles other topics such as movies and board games in his other series’ including Board James, You Know What’s Bullsh*t? and the annual Monster Madness Marathon. He is currently in production of his first feature film and passion project, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie.

Dan Roth

Dan Roth is a professional writer who has worked on franchises like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who. He's currently co-writer of the popular webcomic adventures of brentalfloss and purveyor of all nerdy comic book things for Blastr. In his off hours, Dan enjoys spending time with his new wife, and sneaking into the background of Nostalgia Chick videos when she isn't looking.

Eric Ruth

Eric Ruth is back again, ladies and gentlemen! For his special 10th MAGfest appearance, Eric will be going the education route with a panel devoted to Yoyo Games' "Game Maker Studio." For the duration of his tutorial, you, the wonderful people that you are, will be able to learn how to use the newest iteration of Game Maker, including a "How To" for your first game! Lessons will be taught, fun will be had, and unlike the series final of "Lost," questions will be answered. We look forward to seeing the indie game community at MAGfest this year traditionally including one of our senior guests, Mr. Eric Ruth of Eric Ruth Games.

Jon St. John

Jon St. John is an American voice actor who has provided character voices for countless video games and commercial projects over his 30 year broadcast and voice-acting career.

Best known as the voice of DUKE NUKEM, Jon is also heard on games such as: World of Warcraft, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Sonic Adventure, Heroes of Newerth, Call of Cthulu, The Die Hard Trilogy, Rochard, Gears of War, and Guild Wars 2.

Jon has also provided character voices for theme parks such as Legoland California, and Dollywood in Tennessee.

If you attended MAGFest 8, 9, or 10, you know that Jon is very approachable and really enjoys interacting with fans. If this is your first MAGFest, don’t be shy, (act like you have balls of steel) and step right up for a photo and shake this guys hand!

ScrewAttack

Launched in 2006, ScrewAttack.com has made it's reputation as one of the originators in the best original content online for gamers amassing over 600,000,000 views of it's shows. With ScrewAttack.com's relaunch in September of 2011, ScrewAttack reinvents itself into the new destination for gamers for news, trailers and original content. If you want it, ScrewAttack has it.

Studio Nasu

Come visit the Studio Nasu table to see Dave and some his latest projects, including Conception Complex, a rockin’ new Japanese band whose US CD release is produced by Studio Nasu. Also Protostar and Sweet Adventure, two new video games you can play right at the table. Of course, you’ll want to bring your DS with you this year to play Starbuster, a 3D shooter from Dragon’s Den Unlimited (and for all the shiny pokemon Dave likes to give away, though he doesn’t make pokemon, he only catches them). In addition to all this, Dave has lots of art, cool original video game swag, music, and other power-ups.

Virtual Fools / Low Score Podcast

Ten years running these guys have tricked MAGFest into letting them hang out and host things. They can be found in a few of the gaming intellectual panels, the Video Game Improv show, and this year's The 25,000 Points Pyramid game show. C'mon catch-a-riiiide with Bobby, Kevin, and J!

Josh Whelchel

Josh Whelchel is a freelance composer for video games. He is currently working on Mojang's next title, Scrolls, as well as the Kickstarter success "Castle Story" by Sauropod Studio. He also is part of the team that created and maintains the Game Music Bundle (come see our table, we have goodies). When he's not composing or coding, he's probably listening to that new Jim Guthrie release on his new vinyl player. Josh also created Songs for the Cure, which, along with the Game Music Bundle, has raised a shit ton of money for the American Cancer Society. Also: Josh really hates cancer. It's fuckin' dumb. If you want something cool, ask Josh about his burrito-fetish and Qdoba tattoo. do not speak about "chipotle" around him.

X-Strike Studios

In 2013 X-strike Studios will celebrate it's 10th year as a company and it's 10th year as a guest of MAGFest. Initially a group of dudes with a camera and a burning desire to make feature length video game movies, X-strike has also gone on to produce a number of shorts, series and podcasts for the denizens of the internet. When it comes to MAGFest, the X-strike crew routinely gives programming a headache by splitting themselves off to as many events as possible including panels, game shows and supplying a number of warm bodies for the annual video game improv show. This year X-strike will be offering an early look at Eternal Horror along with a couple more fun surprises.