Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (September 16, 1955) is a American game designer. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he would later go on to study Zoology at University of California, Berkeley before going to work for Chaosium.
He would go on to developing games for MicroProse, id Software and Ensemble Studios before becoming a professor in game design. He would later return to Chaosium and found Petersen Games to publish tabletop games funded through
Kickstarter.
Projects he has worked on:
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (1989)
- Sword of the Samurai (1989)
- Command HQ (1990)
- Civilization (1991)
- Lightspeed (1990)
- Hyperspeed (1991)
- Darklands (1992)
- Doom (1993)
- Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
- Quake (1996)
- Hexen: Beyond Heretic (1996)
- Age of Empires I (1997)
- Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome (1998)
- Age of Empires II (1999)
- Age of Empires II: The Conquerors (2000)
- Age of Mythology (2002)
- Age of Empires III (2005)
- Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs (2006)
- Halo Wars (2009)
- Osiris Legends (2011)
- RuneQuest (1978)
- Call of Cthulhu (1981) - Based on the Cthulhu Mythos
- Stormbringer (1981) - Based on The Elric Saga
- Superworld (2nd Edition) (1982)
- Ringworld (1983) - Based on Ringworld
- Elfquest The Official Role Playing Game (1984) - Based on Elfquest
- Thieves' World (1986) - Based on Thieves' World
- Hawkmoon (1986) - Based on The History of the Runestaff
- Magic World (2012)
- Ghostbusters A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game (1986) - Based on Ghostbusters
Petersen Games
- Cthulhu Wars (2015) - Based on Cthulhu Mythos
- Theomachy (2016)
- Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos (2016) - Based on Cthulhu Mythos
- Orcs Must Die The Boardgame (2016) - Based on Orcs Must Die!
- Dicenstein (2017)
- Evil High Priest (2018)
- Rock A Bye Cthulhu (2019)
- The Tooth Fairy Game (2019)
- Startropolis (2019)
- Glorantha The Gods War (2019)
- 8 Bit Attack (2019)
- Unlocking Insanity (2020)
- Planet Apocalypse (2020)
- Hyperspace (2020)
- Eternal Adversary (2020)
- 2 Minute Dino Deal (2020)
- Dinosaur 1944 (2021)
Film
- The Whisperer in Darkness (2011) - Executive Producer
Tropes include:
- April Fools' Day: He holds Kickstarter campaigns starting April first like Deep One dating & a Hastur Energy Drink with real prize for backing the campaigns being the miniatures for his Cthulhu Wars that are offered a bonus rewards.
