About TGG
The Gaming Gang is the brainchild of Jeff McAleer and Elliott Miller, lifelong best friends, who have over 60 years of combined experience playing, what else, games! Deciding to take their love of all things gaming related to the internet, TGG launched in late August 2010. The goal of the website is to provide the latest in gaming news, honestly presented reviews, as well as thoughts and opinions of the past, present, and future of our wonderful hobby.
TGG mainly focuses on boardgames and card games but miniatures and role playing games will be featured from time to time. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the site and we’re always looking to bring more talent onboard. Please visit this page if you’d like to be a featured contributor. We’re always on the lookout for the next great game so if you’re a designer, developer, or game company representative visit our review page to learn more about submitting a game for review.
We hope you’ll stop by from time to time and visit TGG, where we promise you’ll always find something new!
Meet the Gang
Site Founder, Editor and Show Co-Host, Jeff McAleer was born and raised in Chicago, IL and currently resides in the Valley of the Sun – Mesa, Arizona. He is single and a Google Certified Search Engine Marketing professional in the real world. When not gaming he enjoys films of all genres, cooking, socializing, and reading both fiction and nonfiction of mainly historical nature.
Jeff has been involved in all sorts of gaming for more than thirty years. He has seen the rise of D&D and Magic as well as the fall of Avalon Hill and TSR. He still has fond memories of games from such mainly forgotten companies as FGU, SPI, GDW, and many, many more. Jeff was probably a member of the “Cult of the New” long before there even was a cult and is always looking forward to the latest gaming releases.
Bringing years of experience in the hobby, Jeff looks to bring an open and honest look at the world of gaming with the understanding that there is so much to see and learn about our great pastime. He will also use his background in internet broadcasting to make the upcoming TGG podcast a light and lively program worth catching every two weeks.
Favorite gaming genres: Strategy, Wargames, and Thematic Games
Contact Jeff at jeffmcaleer@thegaminggang.com
Co-Founder and Show Co-Host, Elliott Miller was born and raised in Chicago and still resides in the Chicagoland area. Over the years he has always been a gamer, whether it has been boardgames, CCG’s, war games, RPGs, or even video games there has always been a place in his heart for the hobby. Elliott’s introduction to gaming began when he was just a wee lad – mostly with the Avalon Hill bookcase games showing him that there was so much more to play than simply Monopoly or the Game of Life. Just prior to beginning high school, he heard about a new game called Dungeons and Dragons, spending many fun hours role playing.
D&D led to other role playing games of which Call of Cthulhu is his all time favorite. Helped by the prompting of his best friend Jeff McAleer, Elliott soon delved into war games and miniatures. He has many cherished memories of the original War of the Ring, and along with games such as Gettysburg, Diplomacy, Fletcher Pratt’s Naval War Game, Midway, and Epic Warhammer 40k. All of this led to quite an exposure to varied genres in gaming. He even went through an expensive Magic the Gathering phase during the period when he was first married, had kids, and settled into a pretty normal life.
Games took a backseat for awhile, but there were always video games, which Elliott believes got better and better as time went by. Eventually he divorced, remarried, and had another young’un. His children were grown teens, so he started looking for ways to get them to stay home now and again to spend time together as a family. It was time to once again dive head first back into boardgames; not that they were ever truly out of his life. Several years have passed and Elliott’s love for boardgames just keeps getting stronger. With no time for video games, and no patience to learn or teach complex wargames (although there are many he has wanted to try) he and his family enjoy games like Carcassonne, Arkham Horror (he has to have his Lovecraft!), Settlers of Cataan, Pandemic, Descent (for the dungeon crawl), Ticket to Ride, Dominion, plus many more. He and the kids have a blast!
He does his best to keep up with all the games he’d like to try, and Elliott is sure he will be gaming for many, many years to come.
Contact Elliott at elliottmiller@thegaminggang.com
PC and Console Game Contributor, Tony Manchen
Tony Manchen is an avid console & PC gamer who has a passion for making sure the gaming public as a whole has the information he feels is necessary to make an informed decision prior to dropping $60 on a title. Born & bred in Chicago, with stints in Buffalo, Tony now resides in California. His for video gaming has continued to grow and he is always on the lookout for the next stand out title or, on the flip side, to warn the masses when a game just doesn’t cut it.
Having known Jeff for years (as they worked and gamed together) Tony still has fond memories of playing NHL 98 until all hours of the night just to see Jeff’s look of disgust when faced with unstoppable breakaways or his own “are you kidding me” expression when Jeff crushed a 9th inning home run, in the midst of a PS baseball game, at 3am in the morning.
Tony will contribute occasional gaming news, reviews, rants, and advice within the allowed confines. He looks forward to potentially helping gamers make decisions based on play experience and not partial reviews meant to increase a title’s sales. Hopefully it will always be taken as opinion of a fellow avid gamer with well over a decade of experience in the hobby.
Contact Tony at tonymanchen@thegaminggang.com
Comic Book Contributor, Greg McAleer
Hailing from the Chicagoland area, Greg brings over three decades of comic book fandom to the fore as TGG’s resident comics expert. From tackling Golden and Silver Age titles to the latest projects on the horizon, he provides an “every fan’s” look at the industry; be it from the reader or publisher’s perspective. Greg is especially fond of the Marvel Universe and lists his favorite characters as Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America and team book The Fantastic Four.
Greg has spends much of his free time working in the film industry as well and can be seen in front of the camera in such films as The Dark Knight, Death of a President, Witless Protection and television series The Beast, When Weather Changed History, Undercover: Double Life among many others. He is just as comfortable behind the camera and is the creator of two (as of this writing) projects currently in production negotiations. From time to time Greg will chime in on films and TV shows of interest to our audience.
Obviously enough, as the last name gives away, Greg is the older brother of The Gaming Gang’s founder and editor in chief.
Contact Greg at gregmcaleer@thegaminggang.com
Contributor, James Engelhardt hosts Owl House Game Day once a month at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska. His toddler daughter is too young to play games much more complicated than “Name This Body Part,” but he knows that she will soon be able to sit down to Brass, Caylus, and the entire Arkham Horror series. His wife has grown accustomed to the hobby and regularly sits down with weekend guests for tile-laying and resource management.
As a child, James played pretty much any game put in front of him, from tic-tac-toe to chess, from Uncle Wiggily to backgammon. He remembers the D&D boxed sets, played a lot of Gamma World and Traveller (the old black-and-red box), and stomped bad guys in Champions, DC and Marvel Super Heroes. He got to see the “RPGs are evil” controversy up close, and he’s happy those days are over.
These days, James plays more boardgames and card games, but he’s looking for a good moment to try some of the story-telling RPGs. He’s an avid, omnivorous reader, though he tends to favor non-fiction and poetry. If you’re in town, join him on a walk, hike, or bike ride, stay for dinner, and then open up a bottle of wine and pull a boardgame off the shelf.
