About

Ryan Loos

Hi! I’m Ryan. I’m the owner, writer, designer, editor, cartographer, web developer, social media manager, accountant, and CEO (Chief Eldritch Orator) of Grinning Portal Games. I’ve been running TTRPGs since 2018, and while most of my experience is in D&D 5e I’ve also run Call of Cthulhu and Blades in the Dark. Before that I discovered a love for board games in 2012, and video games in… I don’t know, sometime before I could fully read?

I’ve loved games my entire life, but I’ll never forget the first time I knew I wanted to make them. It was summer 2010, I was a few months from heading off to college, and playing video games in my parents’ basement. I sat there slack-jawed and silent, not from a mind-numbing gaming marathon or a junk food coma, but from the twist in Bioshock. I won’t spoil it here, but if you know you know. Not only was it masterfully executed, it also wouldn’t have worked in any medium but gaming. In that moment I felt the power of games as a storytelling medium for the first time, and it became a dream of mine to create that same feeling in other people. I let that idea stay dormant for a long time.

Grinning Portal is my way of realizing that dream, and I’m thrilled that I finally found a medium where I can create games for other people to enjoy.