About Chris
Chris Backe (rhymes with hockey) runs the one-man show at Entro Games. Born near Chicago, IL, USA, he designed his first game (Armies and Legions) at 10 years old. After graduating college with a Business Administration degree in 2004, Chris taught English in South Korea, which gave him a deep desire to travel and allowed him to be a travel blogger for a time. After meeting and marrying a Canadian woman in South Korea, they became digital nomads in 2013. Chris continued to write a travel blog and published dozens of travel guides along the way.
He began designing tabletop games more seriously in 2016 and connecting with the broader industry. After selling his travel blog in 2018, he began to edit, proofread, and develop other designers games alongside his own. Chris went full-time in the board game industry in 2021, and today has signed and published a number of games.
Beyond designing games, Chris is an entrepreneur in the board game space.
- In 2020, shortly after COVID locked down the world, he co-founded Virtual Playtesting (a Discord server for online playtesting)
- In 2021, he launched TabletopPublishers.com (a service to help designers pitch publishers better).
- In 2022, he launched No Box Games (now Shiny Pigeon Printables) with two partners to make print-and-play games with no assembly required. Their first game, Spies, was funded by over 2,000 backers, and we’ve made several more games.
- In 2025, he co-founded Puzzlerun – a 5k run with escape-room-style puzzles along the way.
Since 2022, Chris has been based in Birmingham, England along with his wife. His Kallax is full of games and game components to use in future games, and is active in several board game playtesting communities. When not designing or playtesting board games, you might find him running somewhere, at the gym, or possibly doing yoga.
About Entro Games
Entro Games is a design studio based in Birmingham, England (or wherever Chris happens to be living at the time).
Three overarching principles go into every game, no matter the theme:
- Lots of strategy and replayability – because every time you play a game, it should feel unique.
- Easy to learn and setup – because spending half an hour setting up the game just delays the fun.
- Players should have interesting decisions to make as often as possible – not simply ‘this is the thing I have to do’ or ‘this is the only move that makes sense’.
- Players should expect to interact with each other – whether that’s as competitors, collaborators, or a combination of the two, players should find plenty of reason to take in what everyone
- Fun to play, not just ‘filler’ – because having fun is why we play.
