Hi, I’m Marco Valtriani and I am a game designer.  I’m also an advertiser and graphic designer. I spend most of my free time playing (both board and video games) and reading books about game studies and game design theory.

Usually I work “on demand”: publishers ask me for a specific game or product, and I design it starting from their requests (genre, theme, target). Working like this helps avoiding time losses and lead to well designed, theme fitting, tailor-made games.

If you need to contact me, please send an email to marco.valtriani at gmail.com

Here’s my biography, my games and all the projects I worked on.

After a short experience as an amateur self-publisher, I designed a couple games “on demand”, Fiume di Parole, an edugame for italian schools, and La Grande Opera, an eurostyle advergame for the “Museo Ideale” of Leonardo da Vinci.

From 2008 to 2011, I was the president of Creatori di Divertimento (ital. “Fun Makers”), an association of game designers and workers of the “gaming world”, focusing on “gaming culture”; the association, that is well-known in italian gaming community, works to help operators, to organize events and fairs.
Sirio Smeriglio (president of another italian gamers’ association) and me, are the minds behind the “touring” authors’ space “Giochi con l’Autore”, made to help young designers to orient themselves in the labyrinth of designing a game and searching for a publisher, and also the devisers of the BoardGameLeague, the italian league of players that follows up the national tournaments of many important games (ranging from Carcassonne to Puerto Rico).
In this role, I’ve been part of the organization of some fairs and I cooperated (at different levels) with many important italian gaming events.

2009-2010. I worked as a co-developer on Wizards of Mickey (a game published by New Media Publishing and designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Gianluca Santopietro) working on tournament rules and expansions.

2011. Scribabs published my first “gamer’s game”: 011. Also, I left the head of the association to avoid any conflict of interests, focusing my activities on the creation of games.
I also started to write articles about game design on gioconomicon.net and holding a few workshops around the italian peninsula.

2012. I founded BGDItalia.it, an italian forum inspired by BGDF.com, to discuss about game design theory and practice with other designers. BGDItalia started a to cooperate with many italian fairs.

2013. Super Fantasy: Ugly Snouts Assault – a dynamic, hack ‘n’ slash style dungeon crawler, saw the light, published by Red Glove.

2014. I started to work with Red Glove as lead designer and consultant.
Vudù, a party game co-designed with Francesco Giovo, was released in March.
Godz, a strategy game co-designed with Diego Cerreti, was released in July.
Dogsitter, Ghiotto di Ghiande, MagiKaboom and Merry Yard were released in September.
Super Fantasy: Night of the Badly-Dead, was released in October.
I contributed to the book “Game Design: gioco e giocare fra teoria e progetto” (ital. “Game Design: game and play between theory and project”) by Maresa Bertolo and Ilaria Mariani, writning the board game design chapter.

2015. I developed Giù dal Trono by Gianluca Piacentini and Rush & Bash by Erik Burigo.
Vudù – Ninjas vs Pygmies was released in March.
Vudù – Double Trouble was released in October.

2016. I helped developing Tzulan Quest by Alessandro Cuneo
Vudù – Barbarians vs Zombies was released in October.
I Racconti del Libro della Giungla was released in October.

2017. Vudulhu, the crossover between Vudù and the deities created by H. P. Lovecraft was released in October.

2018. Vudù – Monsters vs Aliens was released in October.
I designed Cannibal Ferox, a scenario for Perdition’s Mouth, as a guest designer. The scenario was included in the second Kickstarter campaign.

2019. Armata Strigoi, co-designed with Paolo Vallerga, was released in October by Scribabs.
Vudù Dollz, a series of new dolls for Vudù (featuring some of the most iconic dolls of the game) was released in October.
Mecha Brawl, a 2-players tactical game, has been released inside IoGioco, the italian fanzine about board games.

In 2020, under the coronavirus pandemic, I started streaming on Facebook and Twitch.
I made, with Francesco Giovo and Ferdinando Batistini, a free print & play game, Steam & Chips.With Francesco Giovo I also designed Tales of the Lumen Hero, a free game for a crowdfunding campaign supporting and aiding people with multiple sclerosis.
I started teaching classes about game design and game development with Tambù and Bianconiglio.
I designed a custom scenario as a guest designer for Dungeon 6, published by Acchiappasogni.
Scribabs the first expansion for Armata Strigoi: Resurrection By Expansion.