Tabletop

Star Crossed is a two-player game of forbidden love, with players crafting characters who are powerfully attracted to each other, but have a compelling reason not to act on their feelings. As their attraction grows, players draw bricks from an increasingly shaky tower. If the tower falls, your characters act on their feelings, and the number of bricks determines their fate. Presented by writer and designer Alex Roberts.

Bluebeard’s Bride is an investigatory horror tabletop roleplaying game, written and designed by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson. Based on the Bluebeard fairy tale, you and your friends explore Bluebeard’s home as the Bride, creating your own beautifully tragic version of the dark fairy tale.

Dialect is a tabletop roleplaying game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. Players tell the story of the Isolation by building their language. New words will come from the fundamental aspects of the community: who they are, what they believe in, and how they respond to a changing world. Presented by Thorny Games founders Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu.

Ravine is a strategic and cooperative survival card game, from the team that made the Spaceteam card game, raising over $300k on Kickstarter from 6,600 backers. You and your friends survived the plane crash, but will you survive the night? Work together to forage for food, craft a fire, and build shelters, but be wary: every step you take in the ravine could be your last.

Inspired by the award-winning RPG, Fall of Magic, BFF! is a roleplaying game for 2-6 players of all ages by mother and son design duo, Ross Cowman and Terri Cohlene, telling the story of a group of young friends hanging out, having adventures, and exploring how our friendships change and grow.

Someone Has Died is an improvisational storytelling game where players assume the roles of a bunch of weirdos at a will arbitration, trying to inherit a cut of the deceased’s fortune. Using all the cards in your hand, craft a character and convince the estate keeper that you’re the most deserving of them all.

Quest is a game about becoming an extraordinary person in a dangerous world. Designed specifically to make roleplaying games accessible to a wider audience, Quest takes a new approach to telling an amazing story with your friends. Designer T.C. Sottek joins us to show off his latest prototype.

Inspired by the information we all share online, Portland-based designer Ami Baio created You Think You Know Me, a conversational card game of 500 unique cards that playfully tests how well you know your friends, family, partners, or coworkers — helping you learn more about what they love and who they are.

Game designer Jenn Sandercock returns to XOXO to share a new game from her Edible Games Cookbook, fresh off her successful Kickstarter project raising over $100,000 from 1,600 backers to print her collection of unique and tasty edible games.

Every year, Two Rooms and a Boom is one of the most popular games at XOXO, a social game of hidden roles and deduction played in large groups of up to 60 players. We asked creators Sean McCoy and Alan Gerding to join us once again to share their upcoming expansions and rarely-seen prototypes.

Molly McLeod designs civic games, including Rise Up, an ethically manufactured, cooperative board game about people power and taking on oppressive systems to create change, and her latest, Dream City, a card game for 4-8 people to collaborate to build their ideal city and tell the story of what it’s like to live there, coming to Kickstarter later this year.