Rise to the Tabletop!

​Rise to the Tabletop is like an RPG in a box, in a video game! It follows a similar structure to a game like Mario Party, where players move throughout a board completing objectives. Unlike Mario Party there are no stars and instead there are unique board objectives that last for a handful of rounds until completed or they expire. The goal of the game is for the adventurers to have the most gold by the end, but with the twist of an overarching narrative that adapts to players playing as a Paragon or Renegade. The more good or underhanded actions the players perform during events or by using specific items influences their character’s arc down one of these two paths. As they slip further into these roles they become open to new opportunities while losing out on others. This culminates with each of the four player characters having their own narrative climax, by the end of the game based on the winner and their reputation you see the conclusion to their story with either their Paragon or Renegade ending. 

I joined this project after its initial ideation and served as a designer and writer to flesh out the game in greater detail. I worked on writing the four player character alongside Sadie Zeedrich. Together we fleshed out their personality, unique voice, barks, and narrative arcs. I also helped to design the game’s unique party elements. Particularly by creating a handful of different board objectives to shake up the game state. I also used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create character profile cards introducing each of the four playable characters.

The dev team consisted of: Aiden Pearson as a Co-Creator and programmer. Sadie Zeedrich as a co-creator, artist, and writer. Josef Arnold as a programmer. And Angel Hardy as an artist. By the end we produced a short proof of concept vertical slice as an example of what the game would play like.