Tabletop

You may know Arnie Niekamp and Evan Jacover fromHello from the Magic Tavern, their podcast featured at last year’s XOXO, but did you know they make enormously popular party games? They’ll be hosting rounds all night of their new drawing game, Drawful 2, games from the upcoming Jackbox Party Pack 3 including Quiplash 2 and, if you’re good, several more top secret unannounced games they can’t talk about just yet.

Spaceteam is arguably the best cooperative mobile game ever made, forcing friends to frantically scream at each other to avoid their spaceship from blowing up. Last year, it was adapted into a chaotic, cooperative card game by an all-star team, and previewed in prototype form at last year’s XOXO. Henry Smith, creator of the videogame that inspired it, joins us from Montréal.

The Romance Trilogy is a compendium of romance-themed role-playing games — Breaking the Ice, Shooting the Moon and Under my Skin — three quick games about the human heart, now collected in a single volume by designer and conservationist, Emily Care Boss, who joins us from Western Massachusetts to share them with us.

Beasts of Balance is an innovative blend of physical and digital, where players take on the role of gods and goddesses, adding magical animals to a balancing tower, then help them evolve in the connected companion app. London-based designer Alex Fleetwood shows off the upcoming game.

Fall of Magic is a collaborative storytelling game played on a five-foot-long canvas scroll that unrolls as players travel, revealing perilous roads, strange hosts, and fantastic locales, gorgeously illustrated by award-winning artists Doug Keith and Taylor Dow. Musician and game designer Ross Cowman joins us from Olympia to share his work.

Jenn Sandercock makes edible games — freshly-baked tabletop games where eating is a core game mechanic. In The Order of the Oven Mitt, players must pass a grueling initiation trial by following the Sacret Rituals to eat the Sacred Squares — and become a Knight of the Oven Mitt!

For the last two years, we’ve invited game designers Alan Gerding and Sean McCoy to run Two Rooms and a Boom at XOXO, and it’s always a massive hit. A fast-paced party game of social deduction, it’s 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.

In Burgle Bros, players assemble a crew and make a plan to pull off the ultimate tabletop heist. Its companion, Fugitive, is the getaway chase: a tense two-player deduction card game full of close calls and great escapes, all packed into 10 minutes. Each game raised more than $200k on Kickstarter, with designer Tim Fowers joining us from Ogden, Utah to show them off.

Detective Bullshit is a competitive storytelling game centered around a fictional criminal case, where players spin tales of outrageous crimes from a deck of ridiculous characters and dubious evidence. Creators Rae Votta and Corey Lubowich call it “a game you win by making shit up,” so get ready to bullshit your way to the top.

Larklamp is a magic lantern game system for playing ethereal tabletop games made of light. Game boards are cast as shadow patterns from shapes cut into the lantern’s four removable side-panels, changeable like cartridges in a videogame console. Designer P.D. Warne joins us from Montreal to show it off.

Every day in Mumbai, hot lunches are hand-delivered by bicycle and train across the city, packed in tins called tiffins. In Tiffin, players navigate the city, working routes to earn rupees before a competitor gets there first. Designers Rael Dornfest and Jonathan Hager show their newly-published board game at XOXO.

Tarotno is a divination card game for up to four players by the Outpost’s own Mo Cohen, Hagen Deloss, and Laura E. Hall. By manipulating the four essential elements (Meat, Bone, Void, Fluid), players may divine a glimpse of their own fates.

An analog game from created history seeks players to turn the Illimat, control the seasons, and reveal the hidden Luminaries. Illimat will be introduced to the XOXO audience by Keith Baker, Carson Ellis, and members of The Decemberists.