For Grant Lyon, Life is All Fun and Games

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omedian Grant Lyon loves to crack a joke, whether it’s in one of his comedy specials like “Scheduled Fun Time” and “Silly Mustache Man” or in a simple conversation. Lyon is also known for bringing smiles to people’s faces through Grant’s Game Recs, a social media venture in which he spotlights new games for different kinds of players. 

In 2015, Lyon reconnected with his love of games. Like most kids, he played many a hand of UNO when he was young, but games like Codenames, Telestrations, and Cash ‘N Guns revitalized his connection with play.

Then, like everybody else, Lyon’s life was changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. When he wasn’t able to book comedy gigs, he and his roommates had more time on their hands, leading to a new endeavor that would change his career path.

“We were playing a lot of games in that first couple of months of the pandemic every day since all of us ceased to have a job right at the same time,“ Lyon says. “I just felt like these games were really helping me get through this hard time. I knew a lot of my friends don‘t know that much about games when they would come to game nights. Initially, I just started making videos to help my friends find games. I didn’t even put them out really for the public. I put them on my Instagram stories and my personal Facebook account.”

Five years later, this “silly social media thing” that Lyon began has turned into more than 60,000 Instagram followers, the 2023 Toy & Game Innovation Excellence Award for Supplier of the Year, and partnerships with the Chicago Toy & Game Fair (CHITAG) and the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA). At CHITAG, Lyon hosted four gaming events, including a Moose Games Pickleball Blast tournament.

“This past year, I got to experience firsthand his expertise at content, creativity in promoting games and events, running tournaments, comedic skills, and more for all our POP Week events,” says Mary Couzin, senior vice president of People of Play, the company behind CHITAG. “Grant is a creative force!”

Social media also enabled Lyon to meet and engage with fellow creators. Danielle Standring, @dani_standring, has nearly 120,000 followers on Instagram and connected with Lyon through their mutual love of games. After meeting officially at GAMA in 2022, they became fast friends. 

“Grant is one of the most thoughtful and passionate people I know,” Standring says. “We all know the man is funny … but the part I love about him the most is his ability to make you feel heard and cared for. He puts 1,000% into everything he does; you can tell it comes from such a good place.”

As the years have gone by, Lyon has merged his comedy career and game influencer status, with each aspect of his life influencing the other: The games he plays find their way into his comedy routines and he uses his comedy skills to write content for games.

“It‘s been surprising and fun all at the same time,” Lyon says. “It‘s not something that I set out to do, but how many people get to do both things that they love as a job?” 

From his comedic performance background, Lyon already had a strongly established voice, which he could quickly translate into success as a content creator. Now that he’s also writing for games appearing on major retail shelves, including Would You Rather? by Spin Master and That’s What She Said (now published by Moose Games), he finds his comedy writing skills can continue to flourish.

“For me, it’s almost like being a joke writer, but for this specific thing,” Lyon says. “I‘m just writing jokes for games. I‘m writing card prompts for these games.”

Lyon also recently launched I’m Kind of a Big Dill, a party game in which players try to twist the truth to fool their friends. Players must describe something from one of the 160 prompt cards in an exaggerated way, with the level of exaggeration ranging from -3 to +3, with -3 being way worse than the truth actually is and +3 being way better. Other players guess the level of exaggeration and get more points based on how close they are.

“I love those types of games,” Lyon says. “I guess I‘m good at lying, but I have a lot of friends that have been like, ‘Oh, I don’t like to lie. I don‘t feel comfortable with lying.’ So, my design partner and I thought about a game that doesn’t ask you to straight-up lie, but asks you to sort of exaggerate. You‘re not just starting from nowhere; you‘re not just making up a story out of nowhere. You could tell a real story, but then just make it sound like you‘re way better than you actually are, or make it sound like you are way worse than you actually are.”

As Lyon enters his fifth year of making content, he highlights upcoming game releases that excite him, including Apistocracy by Heather L. Dixon, Hutan by The Op, Brink by IV Studios, and more. In his opinion, the best games are ones that create “memorable moments.”

“‘Memorable moments’ can mean a lot of different things,” he says. “It might be an inside joke you have with your friends — party games are great at that. It might be an epic turn in a big strategy game where you combined a bunch of stuff together and you’re like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I did all of that in one turn.’”

Even if you aren’t rushing to pick out your next favorite game to play during family game night or at a party, Lyon believes that there is a game out there for you. 

“I hear people say, ‘I don‘t really like games,’ and I honestly don‘t think there‘s anybody out there that actually doesn’t like games,” Lyon says. “I think there are people who haven‘t found the right game for them or have had bad game experiences. Somebody made them play a game that they didn’t like, and they go, ‘I don‘t like games.’ But there are so many games out there. 

“I guess that’s maybe the better way to say it,” he continues. “There‘s really a game for everyone.”