Jonathan Walton has been involved in the indie “analog” (non-digital) games community since 2002. Currently the administrator of the Diana Jones Award-nominated Game Chef design competition, he was a guest speaker at the inaugural PAX Dev and the 2011 Innovation Learning Network event on “The Gamification of Healthcare.” Jonathan intentionally practices a long-term, slow-burn approach to game design, but his unfinished game Geiger Counter has already received significant attention, as has his edited anthology Push: New Thinking About Roleplaying (2006). He is currently editing two new anthologies, Magic Missile and Stage One (forthcoming, 2012).
Jonathan has a BA in China Studies from Oberlin College (2004) and a MA in China Studies from the University of Washington (2011). He has been studying the Chinese language since 1997 and lived in the People’s Republic for three years between 1998-1999, 2001-2002, and 2004-2005, most recently as a Fulbright Fellow studying the historiography of the Taiping Rebellion. In his day job, he is currently a Next Generation Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle, where his research focuses on Chinese domestic security and his day-to-day activities involve editing and layout in the publications department.
Corvid Sun is a non-commercial indie games developer that provides volunteer preparation and publications assistance for other game designers. It is named after the yangwu (sun crow), jinwu (golden crow), or sanzuwu (three-legged crow) of primordial Northeast Asian mythology — known in Japan and Korea as yatagarasu and samjok-o, respectively. Corvidae are associated with the ten suns of Shang belief and Xie, the first king of Shang, whose mother was impregnated by swallowing the egg of a “dark bird.”
