# Cephalofair Games - House: Game company - Date: Founded 2014 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/cephalofair-games/ > Isaac Childres's Indiana publisher whose crowdfunded Gloomhaven, a colossal box of cooperative campaign dungeon crawling, spent more than five years as the top-rated game on BoardGameGeek. **Why it matters:** Cephalofair turned the long-form roleplaying campaign into a board game with no game master, and its Kickstarter successes, culminating in Frosthaven's record-setting campaign, defined the crowdfunded 'big box' era of tabletop gaming. ## Quick answers **What is Cephalofair Games?** Isaac Childres's Indiana publisher whose crowdfunded Gloomhaven, a colossal box of cooperative campaign dungeon crawling, spent more than five years as the top-rated game on BoardGameGeek. **When was Cephalofair Games founded?** Cephalofair Games was founded in 2014 and is based in Lafayette, Indiana. **Who founded Cephalofair Games?** Isaac Childres. **What is Cephalofair Games known for?** Gloomhaven. **What happened to Cephalofair Games?** Independent and active; Gloomhaven: Second Edition was released in May 2025. ## History Cephalofair Games is the company [Isaac Childres](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/isaac-childres/) founded in 2014 to publish his own designs. Childres had completed a PhD intending to be a physicist, then decided, in his company's words, that designing and publishing board games would be more fun. His first game, *Forge War*, launched the company, which by his account he runs from Lafayette, Indiana, with a growing team handling design, development, writing, art direction, publishing and fulfillment. His second design was far more ambitious. Childres, a fan of heavy Euro-style games who also had a soft spot for dungeon crawlers, wanted a board game that felt like a long roleplaying campaign. He named [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) as the chief inspiration, with [Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/), [Diablo](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/diablo/), [Willow](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/willow-film/) and [Labyrinth](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/labyrinth-film/). The result, [Gloomhaven](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/gloomhaven/), went to Kickstarter in September 2015 and raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers. The game in the box was enormous: 95 scenarios in a branching campaign, 17 character classes (most sealed in boxes to be unlocked), modular hex-map tiles, and sealed envelopes and stickers that permanently changed the world. Combat used no dice. Each turn a player chose two cards from a shrinking hand and used the top half of one and the bottom half of the other, and simple card-driven AI ran the monsters so that everyone could play the heroes and no one had to be the [Game Master](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/game-master/). Strong reviews of the first printing drove a second campaign in April 2017 that raised about $4 million from more than 40,000 backers, and a retail release at a suggested $140. *Gloomhaven* won six Golden Geek awards for 2017, including best overall game, and the Origins Award for Game of the Year. It reached No. 1 on BoardGameGeek's user rankings in 2017 and stayed there until February 2023; about 120,000 copies had sold by August 2018. Cephalofair built a franchise around it. *Forgotten Circles* (2019) added a class and scenarios. *Jaws of the Lion* (2020), a cheaper standalone with a five-scenario tutorial, launched as a Target exclusive to reach casual players. A video game adaptation by Flaming Fowl Studios, published by Asmodee Digital, entered early access in 2019 and was fully released in 2021. The standalone sequel *Frosthaven*, set in a northern outpost, raised almost $13 million from more than 83,000 backers on Kickstarter in 2020, the most for any game there until [Brandon Sanderson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/brandon-sanderson/)'s Cosmere RPG passed it in August 2024; Childres also revised aspects of its setting to address cultural bias. A tiny solo edition, *Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs*, was announced in July 2023, and *Gloomhaven: Second Edition*, with revised scenarios and classes, followed in May 2025. ## Notable work *Forge War*, *Gloomhaven*, *Forgotten Circles*, *Jaws of the Lion*, *Frosthaven*, *Buttons & Bugs* and *Gloomhaven: Second Edition*. ## Legacy Cephalofair is proof that a single designer with a clear vision and a crowdfunding page could, in the 2010s, reach the top of the hobby. Gloomhaven carried the [Dungeon-Crawler Board Games](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/dungeon-crawler-board-game/) from [HeroQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroquest/)'s family evenings and [Descent](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/descent-journeys-in-the-dark/)'s overlord battles to something close to a [tabletop RPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/tabletop-rpg/) campaign in cardboard, and its success set the scale, and the price, of the premium campaign games that followed (see [Crowdfunding & the Kickstarter Era](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/crowdfunding-tabletop/)). ## Facts - Childres completed a physics PhD before deciding that designing and publishing board games would be more fun. - He founded Cephalofair in 2014 to self-publish his first game, Forge War. - Gloomhaven's first Kickstarter, launched in September 2015, raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers. - A second Gloomhaven campaign in April 2017 raised about $4 million from more than 40,000 backers; the retail game listed at $140. - Gloomhaven held the No. 1 spot on BoardGameGeek from 2017 until February 2023 and won six 2017 Golden Geek awards. - Frosthaven's 2020 Kickstarter raised almost $13 million from more than 83,000 backers, the most-funded game campaign on the platform until August 2024. - Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (2020), a smaller standalone with a tutorial campaign, launched as a Target exclusive. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia: Gloomhaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloomhaven) - [Cephalofair Games: About](https://cephalofair.com/pages/about) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.