Andre Novoa

{{Short description|Portuguese game designer (born 1985)}} {{Infobox person | name = Andre Novoa | birth_date = {{Birth date|1985|7|1}}{{cn|date=April 2026}} | birth_place = Oeiras, Portugal{{cn|date=April 2026}} | occupation = Game designer | years_active = 2020–present }}

'''Andre Seabra Real Sampaio da Novoa''' (born 1 July 1985{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}) is a Portuguese game designer, musician, and former cultural geographer. He has lived in the United States and the United Kingdom, and is currently based in Lisbon Portugal. He is the founder of Games Omnivorous, an award-winning publisher and design studio for tabletop role-playing game.

==Education==

Novoa received a B.A. in history and a M.A. in anthropology from the University of Lisbon in 2009, where he studied bands and musicians on the road. In 2010, he moved to the United Kingdom where he completed a PhD in social and cultural geography at Royal Holloway, University of London supervised by Tim Cresswell with a critical analysis of mobility and social class in the European Union.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.routledge.com/Mobility-and-Identity-in-Europe-A-Mobile-Ethnographic-Approach/Novoa/p/book/9780367583231|title=Mobility and Identity in Europe: A Mobile Ethnographic Approach|website=Routledge & CRC Press}}</ref> For this work, he was the recipient of the award Best Young Anthropology by the Portuguese Association of Anthropology in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.apantropologia.org/apa/premios-apa-2018-2019/|title=[encerrado] Prémios APA 2018/2019 – Textos científicos e projetos|date=July 20, 2018}}</ref>

After that, Novoa has written about contemporary identities, extraterrestrial life,<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/mcs/article/view/4392|title=Alien life matters: reflections on cosmopolitanism, otherness, and astrobiology|first=Andre|last=Novoa|date=March 23, 2016|journal=Cosmopolitan Civil Societies|volume=8|issue=1|pages=1–26|via=epress.lib.uts.edu.au|doi=10.5130/ccs.v8i1.4392}}</ref> and space. He has worked in a major ERC academic grant called "The Colour of Labour", on how labour influences processes of racialization. As an anthropologist and geographer Novoa studied travels and considered them ritual passages for the researcher, concerning both a passage to participate in a foreign culture but also to becoming an established researcher".<ref>{{cite book |last1=de Neergaard |first1=Maja |last2=Jensen |first2=Hanne Louise |editor1-last=Büscher |editor1-first=Monika |editor2-last=Freudendal-Pedersen |editor2-first=Malene |editor3-last=Kesselring |editor3-first=Sven |editor4-last=Kristensen |editor4-first=Nikolaj Grauslund |date=2020 |chapter=Embodied ethnography in mobilities research |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bb72DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA374 |title=Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Mobilities |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bb72DwAAQBAJ |location=Cheltenham |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |via=Google Books |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Bb72DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA375 375] |isbn=978-1-78811-545-2 |accessdate=2025-05-19 }}</ref>

==Game Design==

Novoa has written role-playing game (RPGs) books and modules since 2015. His work has been published in the US, Brazil and Europe. In 2020, he created Games Omnivorous,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gamesomnivorous.com/|title=Games Omnivorous - Minimalist & Bizarre Games|website=Games Omnivorous}}</ref> a brand based in Portugal that publishes minimalist and art-house games, including the critically-acclaimed Death Robot Jungle, the first RPG setting in the format of a music LP vinyl <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publico.pt/2020/06/20/culturaipsilon/noticia/disco-jogo-ilha-misteriosa-meio-sala-1920740|title=É um disco, é um jogo, é uma ilha misteriosa no meio da sala|first=Mário|last=Lopes|website=PÚBLICO|date=20 June 2020 }}</ref> and ''Mausritter''. He is the recipient of the 2020 Hartvig Award by Rolisboa, the Portuguese roleplaying convention.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.elemento.pt/rolisboa/premio_hartvig.html|title=Rolisboa 2020|website=www.elemento.pt}}</ref>

The first RPG by Andre Novoa was ''17th Century Minimalist'' (2020).<ref name="TTG">{{cite news |last=Eggett |first=Christopher John |date=2024-05-11 |title=The Job RPG Review |url=https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/reviews/the-job-rpg-review/ |website=Tabletop Gaming |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519004321/https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/reviews/the-job-rpg-review/ |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> Novoa was a designer of ''Death Robot Jungle'' (2020), a role-playing game setting on a record.<ref>{{cite news |last=Eggett |first=Christopher John |date=2020 |title=Death Robot Jungle |url=https://pocketmags.com/us/the-best-games-of-magazine/the-best-games-of-2020/articles/886825/death-robot-jungle |website=Tabletop Gaming |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519005425/https://pocketmags.com/us/the-best-games-of-magazine/the-best-games-of-2020/articles/886825/death-robot-jungle |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> Novoa and Manuel Pinheiro also created ''Putrescence Regnant'' (2021) for ''Mörk Borg'', also on a vinyl record of yellow-and-black marbled wax.<ref>{{cite news |last=Jarvis |first=Matt |date=2020-10-16 |title=Mörk Borg's Putrescence Regnant is a grim 'bog crawl' adventure releasing as a vinyl music album |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/mork-borg/news/mork-borg-putrescence-regnant-kickstarter |website=Dicebreaker |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519005321/https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/mork-borg/news/mork-borg-putrescence-regnant-kickstarter |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> Novoa was also a designer of role-playing games that use hex-shaped tiles, called ''Undying Sands'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Eggett |first=Christopher John |date=2021-07-14 |title=Undying Sands Review |url=https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/reviews/undying-sands-review/ |website=Tabletop Gaming |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519004951/https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/reviews/undying-sands-review/ |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> ''Bottled Sea'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Carter |first=Chase |date=2022-01-21 |title=Hexcrawl across sand and sea with a pair of bookless RPG settings geared towards exploration |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/undying-sands/news/undying-sands-bottled-sea-kickstarter |website=Dicebreaker |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519004835/https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/undying-sands/news/undying-sands-bottled-sea-kickstarter |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> and the ''Hexcrawl Toolbox'' (2023).<ref>{{cite news |last=Carter |first=Chase |date=2022-12-01 |title=Hexcrawl-curious adventurers should check out this toolbox of tabletop RPG aides |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/news/hexcrawl-toolkit-worldbuilding-aide-kickstarter |website=Dicebreaker |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519005224/https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/news/hexcrawl-toolkit-worldbuilding-aide-kickstarter |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Bassil |first=Matt |date=2022-12-09 |title=Run DnD hexcrawls in style with this RPG toolbox |url=https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/hexcrawl-toolbox-kickstarter |website=Wargamer |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519004645/https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/hexcrawl-toolbox-kickstarter |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref> Novoa wrote the minimalist one-shot heist role-playing game ''The Job''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Carter |first=Chase |date=2023-10-19 |title=Stack a tower of dice while pulling an Ocean's Eleven or Italian Job-style heist in one-shot RPG The Job |url=https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/the-job/news/the-job-dice-tower-stacking-heist-rpg |website=Dicebreaker |accessdate=2025-05-19 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250519004527/https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/the-job/news/the-job-dice-tower-stacking-heist-rpg |archivedate=2025-05-19 }}</ref><ref name="TTG"/> Novoa has won several ENNIE Awards for his work with Mausritter, Frontier Scum, Hexcrawl Toolbox and others.{{cn|date=November 2025}}

==Music==

Since his teens, Novoa has played in bands and toured Europe as the drummer for Susan Cadogan and Symarip. He was also one of the founders of Music With Soul Records, an indie label based in Amsterdam credited for the launch of Fumaça Preta,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fumaca-preta.bandcamp.com/album/fumac-a-preta|title=Fumaça Preta, by Fumaca Preta|website=Fumaca Preta}}</ref> amongst others. More recently, he turned to sound design for board-games and role-playing games, collaborating with Portuguese musician and sound-designer Manuel Pinheiro under the guise of the Dead Robotz.

Nóvoa analyzed for the band The Stingers ATX and discovered how their mobility on tour "became a process of creating their identity as musicians".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Yoon |first=Sunmin |date=Winter–Spring 2019 |title=Mobilities, Experienced and Performed, in Mongolia's Urtyn Duu Tradition |journal=Asian Music |volume=50 |number=1 |pages=47–77 |doi=10.1353/amu.2019.0003 |id={{ProQuest|2174568480}} }}<p>The article is available [https://muse-jhu-edu.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/pub/15/article/713329 here] on Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library.</p></ref>

==Politics==

An activist since his youth, Novoa is one of the founding members of LIVRE, an eco-socialist political party in Portugal founded in 2014, which is committed to the Green New Deal and is the champion of minority rights in the country. He was a candidate to the European Parliament in the 2014 elections for the party,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rhqTFajFs8 | title=André Nóvoa no "5 minutos Europa" (RTP) | website=YouTube | date=22 May 2014 }}</ref> and a candidate to the Assembly of the Republic in the 2015 Portuguese legislative election.<ref>{{cite web | title=Há 410 portugueses que querem ser deputados pelo Livre. Filho de Sampaio da Nóvoa é um deles | work=Jornal Expresso | url=https://beta.expresso.pt/politica/2015-05-28-Ha-410-portugueses-que-querem-ser-deputados-pelo-Livre.-Filho-de-Sampaio-da-Novoa-e-um-deles }}</ref>

== References ==  {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Novoa, Andre}} Category:1985 births Category:Indie role-playing game designers Category:Living people