Diane Sauer has spent much of her life around games, the kind played on tables, the kind played in arcades, and,
eventually, the kind she began inventing herself. A lifelong resident of Hamilton Square, New Jersey, she has been
part of a weekly gaming group since 1982 and, together with her husband, Nick, has accumulated a collection of
thousands of games. Before becoming a game designer, she worked in video production, computer systems and corporate
management. She later ran a pinball restoration business, turning the machines she loved into another chapter of her
professional life. In 2014, Diane and Nick founded Shoot Again Games. Since then, she has designed and co-designed
games involving cryptozoological creatures, conspiracy theories, superheroes looking for restaurant jobs and, in
Pinball Showdown, the peculiar experience of actually being the pinball. She has also served repeatedly as a judge
for the Cardboard Edison Award, evaluating games created by designers who are still trying to find their own way
through the maze of rules, mechanics and possibilities.
There is a certain symmetry to Diane's story. Much of her creative life has been concerned with systems, roles and
the rules that determine what happens next. Her own life, meanwhile, has required her to reconsider some of those
rules. Diane is a transgender woman who has built a life and a marriage, a career and a creative identity over
decades, while continuing to move between worlds that might at first seem unrelated. Today, she remains involved
with Shoot Again Games. After retiring from pinball restoration in 2022, she began a new professional chapter as a
personal trainer. It is another turn in a life that has never stayed in one category for very long. For The Heroines
of My Life, Diane spoke about growing up with games, the strange appeal of pinball, designing worlds of her own,
marriage, reinvention, and what it means to finally stop playing a role that was never quite yours.
Monika: Diane, welcome to The Heroines of My Life! Looking at everything you've done, from computers and video
production to pinball, game design and even giving Survivor a try, I'm beginning to suspect that "game designer"
is just one of the many titles you have collected along the way. Which chapter of your rather wonderfully varied
career still makes you smile the most?
Diane: First off, thank you for having me, Monika. I think as I look back over the many jobs I've had, the one that
stands out to me is the running of my pinball restoration business, Shoot Again Pinball. At that time I'd spent
years as a corporate manager, and while I did enjoy helping the people who worked for me and supporting their
careers, I often felt that my job had little real meaning. Working for a huge corporation, I'd go from one project
to the next with none of them being particularly meaningful or memorable. When restoring someone's childhood pinball
machine, it would mean the world to them. People's faces would light up and they couldn't stop smiling. It made me
feel like I'd done something that mattered deeply to them.
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"I was always very imaginative, and gaming really
tickled that in me." |
Monika: You have been playing games since long before "board game renaissance" became a fashionable phrase. What
was it about games that captured you so completely in the first place?
Diane: Really it was escapism and the incredible social aspect of gaming that I fell in love with. I was always very
imaginative, and gaming really tickled that in me. I could hunt woolly mammoths, fight in space battles, be a wizard
defending my realm and so much more. Also, through gaming I've kept up with high school friends and made so many new
ones over the years I wouldn't otherwise have met. Not to mention that I met my husband through gaming.
Monika: You and Nick have apparently accumulated thousands of games. At what point does a game collection stop
being a collection and become a second mortgage?
Diane: While I had a pretty substantial collection of about five hundred games before Nick and I got married, he had
over double that and really is the driver behind our board game collection. To be fair, though, he has slowed down a
lot in acquiring new games to play and has been focusing more on documenting gaming history. We have even finally
started to pare down our collection, albeit very slowly.
Monika: You were working with computers long before today's technology culture existed. What was it like being a
woman in technical environments during those earlier decades, and did you ever feel that you had to prove yourself
twice over?
Diane: Well, back then, in the mid-1980s, I didn't have to deal with the things my female peers did, since I was
pre-transition at that point. It was extremely misogynistic back then. For example, I went on a job interview for a
video production job where the man interviewing me flat out said that he didn't want to hire a "skirt." I didn't
take that job. When I got into a position of being able to hire people, I always tried to hire as diverse a staff as
possible. This was not common at the time, as most of my peers' staff were 80% or better white men.
One interesting thing I did work on back then was the very start of touch-screen technology. Back then it was a
frame that mounted over the screen of a monitor, with a touch pen attached to it. We used laserdisc technology to
create interactive courses and promotional programs. I worked on the video side of things, but had to learn a lot
about computers, since it was a marriage of video and computers. That is what led me into the computer field.
Monika: There seem to be an extraordinary number of transgender women in IT, technology and gaming. Do you think
there is something about the way many of our minds work, perhaps our analytical or technical talents, that draws
us toward these fields? Or are we simply very good at finding careers where we can hide behind a computer when the
world becomes complicated?
Diane: Personally, I feel that IT and gaming both require heavy analytical thinking and the ability to problem-solve
by thinking outside the box. For me, at least, my personal journey and solving the puzzle of who I really was proved
to be the most difficult problem to crack. I didn't want it to be true, but by systematically going through each
fact, I led myself to an undeniable conclusion.
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| "You have to be yourself." |
Monika: You also studied video production and worked as a producer and director. Did storytelling and creating
imaginary worlds give you an escape when real life felt less comfortable?
Diane: Well, my professional life as a video producer and director was kind of dull, as I worked almost exclusively
on educational productions for medical professionals, though I did do some creative video and film work for fun. My
main creative outlet at that time was writing for and running my role-playing group. We played a role-playing game
authored by my friend Jim and myself called Star Empires.
Monika: In 2014, you and Nick founded Shoot Again Games. What was the moment when you thought, "We have played
enough games, now let's start making them"?
Diane: I've always been making games, practically since I started playing them. The problem was that they were
cost-prohibitive to produce and fund on a smaller scale. By the time we jumped in, the rising prevalence of
Kickstarter had opened up board and card game creation to small publishers and individuals.
Monika: Your games cover everything from Bigfoot and conspiracy theories to superheroes and pinball. Where does a
Diane Sauer game usually begin, with a theme, a mechanic, a strange obsession, or one of those ideas that arrives
at three in the morning and refuses to leave?
Diane: All of the above, really. I often have several themes and ideas floating around in my head, and sometimes I
have a breakthrough out of the blue. For example, I'd wanted to do an arcade or pinball game for years but was stuck
on the fact that pinball is played solo, one player at a time, which would really limit player interaction. One day
it just struck me, "What if the players were the pinball?" and that unlocked everything. I had a playable prototype
ready within a few hours.
Monika: You ran a pinball-restoration business for years. What was it about those old machines that fascinated you
so much, the mechanics, the sound, the nostalgia, or the challenge of bringing something almost forgotten back to
life?
Diane: I was a teenager during the 1970s and early '80s. Arcades, video games and pinball machines permeated the
culture. Arcades were everywhere, and you could find a machine to play almost anywhere, from the local pizza place
to laundromats and everywhere in between. The arcade was a gathering spot, and the games were something many of us
bonded over, so the nostalgia was a strong motivation. Also, when I started working on one, I was surprised to find
out that I was very good at understanding how mechanical devices and electronics worked, which made them fun to work
on.
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"Our wedding day was perfect and went exactly
how we wanted it to go." |
Monika: You and Nick have been married since June 29, 2002. After more than two decades together, what is the
secret to remaining partners in both life and creativity without eventually banning each other from the game room?
Diane: I consider myself extremely lucky to have met Nick, but like all of us, he is not perfect in every way,
because no one is. That goes for me as well. The trick is that each of us understands that we are not going to
change the other, and that it's futile to try. We accept each other as we are and are capable of letting little
things go while focusing on what's really important.
Monika: What do you remember most vividly about your wedding day? Was wearing a white wedding dress one of those
dreams that had quietly lived in your imagination for years?
Diane: Our wedding day was perfect and went exactly how we wanted it to go. It was everything I could have dreamed
of, and it suited us perfectly. Many people compromise on their wedding, especially with their parents. Trust me,
it's a mistake, because you can't make everyone happy. It's your wedding day, make yourself happy.
Monika: Choosing a name is such a deeply personal decision, one that can hold layers of significance and meaning.
How did you come to choose your name? Does it carry a special resonance for you, perhaps representing a part of
your journey or embodying a particular feeling or aspiration?
Diane: When it came to picking a name, it was an honest, spur-of-the-moment thing. It was my first support group
meeting, and they were going around the room introducing themselves. I had maybe two minutes to think about it, and
the person I thought of, someone I admired and wanted to be like, was my godmother. It was the perfect choice.
Monika: When you came out, did your mother embrace you as her daughter? And do you feel any connection to her in
the way you look, carry yourself, or even in your style and mannerisms?
Diane: My mother did accept me, for the most part, but I don't think I had a connection with her in that way. I was
more influenced by my female friends and by the culture in general.
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Diane Sauer.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
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