Pronouns: they/them
playscholar@gmail.com
laya@uwm.edu
My name is Laya Liebeseller. I am a white, queer, neurodivergent, first generation German-American, game designer and anthropologist that wears too many hats for my own good.
My philosophy in any job I take centers kindness, patience, and equity.
Unabashedly ACAB, support for MMIW, trans rights are human rights, end the genocide in Palestine and the Congo as well as other the ongoing genocides of indigenous populations here in the Americas and beyond. If you don’t agree, don’t hire me.
Game Designer: I am currently the Project Lead for Confluence, a tabletop roleplaying game under Publishing Goblin Inc. In 2024 my adventure Heist! At the Timeloop, written with Rainer Wren Dalton, was published in Unknown Worlds: Victorian Horror Journal of Simon Fox, and my ARG workshop Switchboard performed with Rainer Wren Dalton had its first showing at the University of Wisconsin: Madison. In 2025 I am developing two alternate reality games Grimoire, a slenderman retrospective on whiteness and community and Relikpunk Futures imagining secure queer futures. Please visit the Game Design page for more about my design work.
- I am open for projects. Please see my CV for more information about my past projects and qualifications.
Dissertation Writing: I am a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the University of WI – Milwaukee. In 2020-2021 I completed my dissertation research on the migration of in person games to online communities and the ways in which play was central to those communities. My dissertation as its being written is a rumination on covid, what it means to play through and with trauma, and how to question standard ideas of authorship, singularity, and individuality.
