Alex Roberts (game designer)

Alex Roberts
Roberts at PAX Unplugged (2023) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
NationalityCanadian
OccupationGame designer
Notable workFor the Queen (game), Star Crossed (game)
Websitewww.helloalexroberts.com

Alex Roberts is a Canadian tabletop role-playing game designer. Her games typically lack a gamemaster (GM) and include romantic themes. Her games include For the Queen and Star Crossed.

Career

Games

Roberts designed For the Queen, a GM-less storytelling card game that initiated the genre of games called "Descended from the Queen."[1][2] For the Queen was first published by Evil Hat Productions in 2019, then an updated version was published by Darrington Press in 2024.[3] Brittany N. Arde at the University of Cincinnati used Roberts' For the Queen in a psychological study on the influence of storytelling games on team building.[4] Emily St. James, for Vox, stated in 2020 that "Roberts is one of the RPG creators whose work most excites me right now, and For the Queen is her best game";[2] in 2022, she called Roberts "one of the best RPG designers working right now".[5]

Roberts contributed design work for Till the Last Gasp (2023), a 2-player dueling game published by Critical Role's imprint Darrington Press.[6][7] Linda Codega for Io9 described Till the Last Gasp as a blend of Will Hindmarch's tactical, mathematical design approach with Alex Roberts' "established" experience "designing immersive two-player games".[8]

She created the two player play-by-post game Our Time on Earth in 2021.[9]

Roberts designed the game Pop! in 2020 for the LARP anthology Honey & Hot Wax. In a 2024 interview with Polygon, Roberts said, "The best game I’ve ever made is Pop! It’s a live-action game about a community of balloon fetishists."[3]

Roberts made Star Crossed, published by Bully Pulpit Games in 2019, a game about forbidden romantic pairings.[5] It was funded via a Kickstarter campaign.[10] The game won the 2019 Diana Jones Award.[11] The use of a Jenga tower as a game mechanic to heighten tension was inspired by the horror role-playing game Dread.[12]

Roberts was the host of the role-playing games podcast "Backstory" on the One Shot Podcast Network from 2016 to 2019.[13]

Counseling

In addition to working as a game designer, Roberts runs a counseling service.[14]

Works

Title Publisher Credits Date Ref.
For the Queen Evil Hat Productions, Darrington Press Designer 2019, 2024 [1]
Star Crossed Bully Pulpit Games Designer 2019 [11]
Hero Dog Saves Town (in the anthology The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book) Simon & Schuster Author 2020 [15]
POP! (in the anthology Honey & Hot Wax) Pelgrane Press Author 2020 [16]
Our Time on Earth Itch.io Designer 2021 [9][17]
Till the Last Gasp Darrington Press Designer 2023 [8]
For the Queen 2E Darrington Press Designer 2024 [18][19]

References

  1. ^ a b D'Amato, James (March 13, 2023). "Pivot your D&D group to a different system built with role-play — not combat — in mind". Polygon. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  2. ^ a b St. James, Emily (April 3, 2020). "Beyond Dungeons & Dragons: A guide to the vast, exciting world of tabletop RPGs". Vox. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Robinson, Tasha (2024-05-23). "For the Queen's creator on the new edition, her many copycats, and her balloon-kink RPG". Polygon. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
  4. ^ Arde, Brittany N. Exploring the Influence of Collaborative Storytelling Games on Team Effectiveness. University of Cincinnati ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2022.
  5. ^ a b St. James, Emily (February 8, 2022). "One Good Thing: A game that turns romance into a teetering tower, doomed to fall". Vox. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  6. ^ "Critical Role publisher announces two-player cinematic storytelling game". Dicebreaker. December 16, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  7. ^ "Critical Role Announces New Board Game". ComicBook.com. December 21, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  8. ^ a b Codega, Linda (March 17, 2023). "Till the Last Gasp Is a Two-Player Duel of Missteps and Drama". Gizmodo. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  9. ^ a b Yūe, Sebastian (February 17, 2022). "Meet the homegrown game designers making the tabletop games we can't wait to play". CBC Life. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  10. ^ Hall, Charlie (May 7, 2018). "Star Crossed is the tabletop RPG for shippers everywhere". Polygon. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  11. ^ a b "The 2019 Award". The Diana Jones Award. August 1, 2019.
  12. ^ "One Good Thing: A game that turns romance into a teetering tower, doomed to fall". www.vox.com. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  13. ^ "Backstory". Oneshot Podcast Network. Archived from the original on March 9, 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  14. ^ Meehan, Alex (2024-05-16). ""You don't know when something profound is going to happen": Designer behind Critical Role's new RPG on the therapeutic potential of tabletop games". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
  15. ^ Roberts, Alex (2020). "Hero Dog Saves Town". In D'Amato, James (ed.). The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book: 40 Fast, Easy, and Fun Tabletop Games. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-5072-1286-8. OCLC 1151490303.
  16. ^ Roberts, Alex (2020). "POP!". In Biswas, Sharang; Kahn, Lucian (eds.). Honey & Hot Wax. Pelgrane Press.
  17. ^ "Our Time on Earth by Alex Roberts". itch.io. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  18. ^ Meehan, Alex (January 23, 2024). "Critical Role publisher printing new edition of storytelling game For the Queen". Dicebreaker. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
  19. ^ "Critical Role's Darrington Press Announces 'For the Queen 2E'". ICv2. January 24, 2024. Retrieved January 25, 2024.