Pao Salcedo
Game Curator

Favorite Coolmath Games: Powercut, 8 Ball Pool
Pao is an advertising copywriter turned game producer. A graduate of the NYU Game Center's Game Design MFA program, he has over 9 years of experience playing, testing, and curating games in an academic or professional setting.
As a Senior Game Producer at Coolmath Games, Pao has created comprehensive game design documents for experienced external developers and translated them into launched games, such as Rock Paper Scissors, Pirate Battle: Ships Ahoy, and Tag.
He has licensed over 100 games and counting for CoolmathGames.com (including Tiny Fishing, Slice Master, and Duck Duck Clicker) and the Coolmath Games mobile app.
Before Coolmath Games, Pao worked at Computer Lunch, developers of the hit mobile games Cell to Singularity and Mama Hawk. He researched historical tidbits for Cell to Singularity and wrote write-ups for limited-time events. He also wrote in-game text and copy for Mama Hawk, and store descriptions for the App Store and Play Store.
Prior to that he was briefly a playtester for one of the most successful tabletop RPG Kickstarters ever.
In a previous life, he was a creative copywriter in multinational ad agencies in the Philippines.
Outside the hallowed, equation-filled halls of Coolmath Games, he is playing old JRPGs, trying to catch up to the latest One Piece volume, and experimenting with his lola's adobong manok recipe.
WORK EXPERIENCE
- COOLMATH GAMES | Senior Game Producer
2019 – Present - COMPUTER LUNCH | Game Researcher
Apr – Jun 2019, Sep 2022 - KICKSTARTER RPG | Game Tester
Apr 2019 - COMPUTER LUNCH | Game Design and Copywriting
Jun – Aug 2017 - LEO BURNETT GROUP MANILA | Creative Team Head
May 2014-May 2016 - TBWA\SANTIAGO MANGADA PUNO | Copywriter
June 2010 – April 2014
EDUCATION
- NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, USA, MFA Game Design
- ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY, PHILIPPINES, BS Business Management
- ÉCOLE SUPÉRIEURE DE COMMERCE, PAU, FRANCE, Int’l Management Program
CONFERENCES ATTENDED
- Game Developers Conference 2023
- Indiecade 2017, 2018
- PlayNYC 2018, 2021
- Waffle Games 2018
Games Reviewed By Pao Salcedo
Words of Wonders
February 14, 2025Connect the letters into words! Explore different landmarks as you fill the grid with unique words.
Bee Magic
February 3, 2025Buzz around and collect the stars! Explore the lawn and retrieve special orbs to help you gather all the stars as quickly as possible.
Super Tic Tac Toe
January 30, 2025It's an X! It's an O! It's Super Tic Tac Toe! Test your strategy against other players in this super-sized version of the pen-and-paper classic.
Cryptograms
January 24, 2025Crack every code in this brain-teasing word game! Hundreds of puzzles await you - can you solve them all?
Chill Out
January 9, 2025Neither snow nor rain nor sleet shall stop this robot from delivering the package! Control the forces of nature to build your path in as few moves as possible.
War Card Game
January 3, 2025The classic card game is here! Play against a bot or a friend as you fight card to card for a victory. Will you collect the most cards?
Mushroom Blocks
January 2, 2025This endless puzzle is downright FUNgal! Sort the mushrooms into rows and make sure they don't overflow.
Penguin Love Puzzle
December 17, 2024Help these penguins fall back in love! Swap tiles and remove all obstacles in these loving penguins' way.
Deck the Halls
December 16, 2024Cover every tile in lights! Move across each tile and get the lightbulb to the plug to power on those festive lights.
Katkoot
December 13, 2024Every level is a brain teaser! There's more to these in-game instructions than meets the eye...