Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
We had a great conversation at SIEGE2020 on Neurodivergence in the Game Industry (youtu.be/7YXN0d2ydLw). Now several of our speakers are returning for a five-year update on what they have learned since the last discussion.
Michelle Menard, this year’s CIMFest keynote, is co-founder and CCO of Dragon Snack Games. As a games industry designer, writer, speaker, and executive, Michelle is passionate about hiring and mentoring talent, helping create and lead teams that deliver best-in-class experiences. She has successfully led teams and shipped high-profile games across multiple different genre-spaces and platforms.Well versed in collaborating with designers, developers, publishers, and other stakeholders, she has taken projects from initial pitching and ideation through funding, prototyping, and production, and launch.
Brook Burgh is an autistic and queer developer, who loves making small games. Over the course of 25 games across 5 years, Brook has grown their skills to where they now have a solid streak of great and fun creations, specializing in weird and frantic-style games. Their accomplishments include a first place and top-5 finish in the CoolMath Game jam two years in a row, first place at University of Georgia’s Capturing Science contest, as well as the creation of Breadwinner VR, a frantic and hilarious game. Brook also created Neuro Diversion, their one-person game studio that will sell expanded versions of game jam games and donate portions of the revenue to charities relevant to the game!
beanborg.itch.io/pushamo
twitter.com/NeuroDiversion
Matt Mannheimer is producer of the upcoming Star Garden game at Game Garage. He also helps develop official trailers and social media videos for SEGA and the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Past positions include with SEGA and Adult Swim. You can check out the Star Garden Kickstarter here: kickstarter.com/projects/gamegarage/star-garden
We had a great conversation at SIEGE2020 on Neurodivergence in the Game Industry (youtu.be/7YXN0d2ydLw). Now several of our speakers are returning for a five-year update on what they have learned since the last discussion.
Michelle Menard, this year’s CIMFest keynote, is co-founder and CCO of Dragon Snack Games. As a games industry designer, writer, speaker, and executive, Michelle is passionate about hiring and mentoring talent, helping create and lead teams that deliver best-in-class experiences. She has successfully led teams and shipped high-profile games across multiple different genre-spaces and platforms.Well versed in collaborating with designers, developers, publishers, and other stakeholders, she has taken projects from initial pitching and ideation through funding, prototyping, and production, and launch.
Brook Burgh is an autistic and queer developer, who loves making small games. Over the course of 25 games across 5 years, Brook has grown their skills to where they now have a solid streak of great and fun creations, specializing in weird and frantic-style games. Their accomplishments include a first place and top-5 finish in the CoolMath Game jam two years in a row, first place at University of Georgia’s Capturing Science contest, as well as the creation of Breadwinner VR, a frantic and hilarious game. Brook also created Neuro Diversion, their one-person game studio that will sell expanded versions of game jam games and donate portions of the revenue to charities relevant to the game!
beanborg.itch.io/pushamo
twitter.com/NeuroDiversion
Matt Mannheimer is producer of the upcoming Star Garden game at Game Garage. He also helps develop official trailers and social media videos for SEGA and the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Past positions include with SEGA and Adult Swim. You can check out the Star Garden Kickstarter here: kickstarter.com/projects/gamegarage/star-garden
