Tabletop

A modernized and meme-savvy version of the classic party game Celebrity, Monikers asks your friends to guess the name on your card, drawn from 400 of the “weirdest, most interesting names we could think up,” from Drunk Jeff Goldblum to the Star Wars Kid. Coming off the success of their overfunded Kickstarter project, designer Alex Hague joins us from Brooklyn to show it off.

Indie RPG designer Luke Crane returns to XOXO with a light strategy game for two players inspired by David Petersen’s Mouse Guard comics. Played on a wooden gridded board with mouse pawns and a deck of illustrated cards, the game raised $55,000 from over 1,200 fans.

Twin Cities-based conductor-turned-game designer Erika Svanoe created Marrying Mr. Darcy, a role-playing/strategy card game inspired by Pride and Prejudice, in which players play the female characters from the book to attract a suitor. The game raised more than $57,000 on Kickstarter and was shipped to backers in April.

Originally created in 2010, Catacombs is a dungeon crawler board game with dexterity, where players flick wooden discs to defeat monsters. In April, the creators launched a complete redesign of the game’s artwork with illustrations by Kwanchai Moriya, a blockbuster project that raised over $200k on Kickstarter. Game designer Aron West is coming from Hamilton, Canada to share his latest prototype.

An ancient folk game, Ninja is a theatrical turn-based party game where players take turns striking moves and engaging each other in ultimate ninja combat. Ninja evangelist and Threes creator Asher Vollmer joins us from Los Angeles to facilitate battles. Ninja costume optional.

Can you convince someone that toilet paper is a penguin, without telling a lie? These French Fries Are Terrible Hot Dogs is a party card game that asks players to convince others their card is the best hot dog, hat, or other object, usually by stretching the truth. Raising five times his goal on Kickstarter, creator Shawn Pierre joins us from Philly to share his latest prototype.

NYC’s Zach Gage may be best known for his videogame work on games like Spelltower and Ridiculous Fishing, but he’s made several tabletop games too. Guts of Glory is his first board game, a competitive eating game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland for 2-4 players, shipped earlier this year after a successful Kickstarter project.

Two Rooms and a Boom is a fast-paced party game of social deduction, like Werewolf with a ticking time bomb. Groups of up to 30 people split into two teams, get assigned roles, and try to find the bomber and save the President in three tense, timed rounds. Bolstered by their smash Kickstarter project, creators Alan Gerding and Sean McCoy bring their latest prototype to XOXO.

Keith Baker is a game design legend, responsible for creating the world of Eberron for Dungeons & Dragons and Gloom, a darkly-comic game played on transparent plastic cards. Gloom’s second edition was released earlier this year, but one variation will never see the light of day: Copyright Infringement Gloom, which crams in characters and situations from Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Doctor Who, and more into a lawsuit-worthy sci-fi universe. Keith will bring his unpublishable game, you bring your imagination. (No lawyers, thanks.)