Diane Sauer has spent much of her life around games, the kind played on tables, the kind played in arcades, and,
eventually, the kind she began inventing herself. A lifelong resident of Hamilton Square, New Jersey, she has been
part of a weekly gaming group since 1982 and, together with her husband, Nick, has accumulated a collection of
thousands of games. Before becoming a game designer, she worked in video production, computer systems and corporate
management. She later ran a pinball restoration business, turning the machines she loved into another chapter of her
professional life. In 2014, Diane and Nick founded Shoot Again Games. Since then, she has designed and co-designed
games involving cryptozoological creatures, conspiracy theories, superheroes looking for restaurant jobs and, in
Pinball Showdown, the peculiar experience of actually being the pinball. She has also served repeatedly as a judge
for the Cardboard Edison Award, evaluating games created by designers who are still trying to find their own way
through the maze of rules, mechanics and possibilities.
There is a certain symmetry to Diane's story. Much of her creative life has been concerned with systems, roles and
the rules that determine what happens next. Her own life, meanwhile, has required her to reconsider some of those
rules. Diane is a transgender woman who has built a life and a marriage, a career and a creative identity over
decades, while continuing to move between worlds that might at first seem unrelated. Today, she remains involved
with Shoot Again Games. After retiring from pinball restoration in 2022, she began a new professional chapter as a
personal trainer. It is another turn in a life that has never stayed in one category for very long. For The Heroines
of My Life, Diane spoke about growing up with games, the strange appeal of pinball, designing worlds of her own,
marriage, reinvention, and what it means to finally stop playing a role that was never quite yours.
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