I made my first tabletop game! 🎉
Brave the Dreamer is a collaborative storytelling game about estrangement and belonging for 1-4 players. You play as youths who were transported to an alternate world, returned here involuntarily, and found each other on a niche Internet forum about the experience. The game is played without a game master or facilitator—instead, like For the Queen (on which it’s based), you take turns drawing cards and answering questions about your characters’ experiences.
It’s inspired by media like I Saw the TV Glow (2024), Past Lives (2023), the self-aware portal fantasy of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, and hopepunk works in the style of Becky Chambers. A standard deck of cards, some writing implements, and a few hours are all that’s needed to spin a story about cherishing/forgiving/running toward all of your childhood fantasies, young adult disaffection, and adult actualization.
I made Brave the Dreamer for the (No) Strings Attached Game Jam, and over the coming days/weeks, I plan to post some design diaries to talk about my process of developing the game. (Spoiler alert: Possibly more fun than writing novel-length fiction, and almost certainly faster!)
In the meantime, check out Brave the Dreamer, and if you play it, I’d love to hear what you think!