25 original board games you can playtest online on Tabletop Simulator this 2022 spring!

About: Jump into our universe with the Vanquishers trading card game. A fast-paced strategy card game that allows you to choose a hero and build a unique deck to battle against or alongside other players to steal your opponent’s energy.

Game Development Inspiration: Growing up playing and collecting all the cards games from the 90s (Pokémon, MTG, Mage knights). Playing games like Risk and the love for science fiction have driven the imaginations of the creators of VanquishersTCG.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Game is open for play on TTS right now

• Sign Up To Playtest: Register on the website and the game is out for playtesting live now

• Type: Trading card game

• Theme: Sci-fi

• Number of Players: 1v1 at this time but planning on future additions of 2v2, 3v3 as well

• Age: 13-45

• Time To Play: 45 minutes for Standard Mode

About: Players customize a hovercraft (represented by a deck of cards) and race each other in exotic locations across the solar system. Over time, players develop rivalries, make modifications, and sabotage each other to find victory.

The game is designed to be played over 5-10 sessions, each about 1-2 hours long. Before each session, players will spend about 15 minutes communicating with the GM to make decisions. The sessions themselves are deterministic, meaning that players only gather to watch the race unfold, so if a player has to miss a session, the game can go on as needed.

Game Development Inspiration: A lot of my design is influenced heavily by trying to find time for long-running RPG campaigns for players with a busy schedule. AHRHC is designed in such a way that players can miss a significant number of sessions while still being able to have an impact on play. The game is also heavily inspired by my wife's love of motorsports. I wanted to make a game we would both enjoy.

Tabletop Simulator Mod: Public mod coming soon!

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: March 1, 2022, to April 30, 2022

• Sign Up To Playtest: We are looking for full groups that wish to play, please contact scott@greatlakesgamelibrary.com for more information

• Type: Card driven racing role-playing game

• Theme: Sci-fi theme

• Number of Players: 4-8 players

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: Sessions of the RPG are issuance about 2 hours

About: In Criss-Cross Town, players are in charge of building a bustling town – in the form of a crossword! Starting with a 10x10 letter grid, you will be cutting off letters to add them to your town, aiming to place buildings such as offices, shops, and parks in the best spots for future residents to benefit from. Building houses will attract more workers, helping you build a bigger and better town by making difficult letters wild. Balance both the size and the quality of your town in order to score the most points and become the best urban planner in the wor(l)d!

Criss-Cross Town features a unique "cut-and-place" mechanism - starting with a 10x10 letter sheet and a pair of scissors, players cut letter pieces and use them to expand their crossword town.

Game Development Inspiration: This game was inspired by my love of word games and town-building games, and I was very much motivated to get back into coding/scripting so I could make it into a mod.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: March-May 

• Type: Family game

• Theme: Town building and word game hybrid

• Number of Players: 1-4

• Age: 10+

• Time To Play: ~40 minutes

About: The players take the role of Champions who have died, and are fighting to escape a purgatory forest. The goal is to Awaken their past memories, being the first to defeat the keeper and escape to the Beyond. During each player's turn, they move around the board. Depending on where they land, they get a story (known as encounter) which can either be an Event from the Forest, a creature or Guardian fight, or fighting one of the other players. Combat is deterministic and exciting. Much like its inspiration Slay the Spire, each combat feels like a puzzle. All the pieces are laid out in front of you, and it's up to you how to survive. The major twist in the game is because the Champions are already dead, dying while in purgatory is not only trivial but often beneficial. It is strange to WANT to have another player kill you, but starting your turn with full hit points is quite the boon!

The main game is competitive, but a cooperative and solo game variant that are currently in testing!

Game Development Inspiration: The board game (and design) community. This project started as a creative outlet and has become a full-fledged game. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of the community. In terms of actual mechanics, initially, I wanted to design a better Talisman. What came next incorporated elements of some of my favorite games: Mage Knight, Runebound, Darkest Nights, Thunderstone, and of course Slay the Spire.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Every Saturday 1400 - 1800 MST

• Type: Asymmetrical PvP heavy adventure game, Slay the Spire meets Talisman

• Theme: Purgatory escape, race to the finish, fantasy

• Number of Players: 2 - 4

• Age: +12

• Time To Play: 120 - 180 minutes

About: A human has perished and the soul now crosses into the aerial toll houses awaiting judgment. Each toll-house is a place where the soul is accused of fault within a certain category of sins (denoted by an icon). In each house, Demons share stories of the soul's shortcomings in various sins; while the soul's guardian angels (Players) co-operate to provide a defensive truth against those claims. If a defense is ever insufficient, the soul will be dragged away to hell and all players lose. Players take turns defending at each toll-house and prepare for this in a number of ways, including an ability to obtain points by developing their influence. If the soul passes through each toll-house successfully, whichever player obtained the most points will win. One caveat to this, is that while it is generally good for the team to allow other players to step in and help you defend the soul, if a player steps in more than twice during the entire game, the game will end immediately and that player wins.

Game Development Inspiration: The development of Toll-Houses was inspired by an Orthodox Christian Metaphor, that is the aerial toll houses, as described in the 7th-century writings of St John Climacus

Tabletop Simulator Mod: Coming soon!

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Starting March 10th, 2022- TBD

• Type: Engine-building & resource-management game

• Theme: Christian - Orthodox Toll Houses

• Number of Players: 1-6

• Age: 3+

• Time To Play: 20-45 minutes

About: A roguelike dungeon crawler that can be played in single scenario mode (one session, zero-to-hero) or in campaign mode (8 scenarios). Tactical fights l, random dungeons, monsters, traps, and a lot of loot to discover. Freely create your character or use an existing one. See the website or BGG for more information.

Game Development Inspiration: Playing a lot of Torchlight 2 (Video Game) and wanting to merge Tabletop RPGs with a more procedural dungeon crawler board game. Lots of loot, traps, and tactical fights were the goal.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Any Friday or weekend German time possible, no fixed dates yet

• Type: RPG / dungeon crawler

• Theme: fantasy, dungeon crawler

• Number of Players: 1 to 6 players

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: 45 mins per player (roughly 3 hours with 4 players per scenario)

About: Before time began, the Apathetic Maker woke from nothing into nothing. Disturbed at this overwhelming lack, the Maker created everything. Life, movement, color—all at once, the bubbling soup of all possibility filled the void. The Maker looked at this cacophony and decided: it was fine. And the Maker left. Hiding in a last bit of quiet nothing, the Ardent Reaper emerged to the sound of chaotic suffering. The Reaper looked upon everything as a gardener views an overgrown plot filled with strangling weeds. These weeping souls needed order, or they needed peace. So the Reaper laid out the rules of a grand game: bring these troubled souls together by whatever means you can, and your view will prevail. All others will be taken back to the quiet nothing from whence they came.

In Ardent Reapers, players take on the role of a Reaper, a mysterious being attempting to take control of The Chaos with a strange assemblage of beings fighting for their outlook and their lives. Win and you have a chance to remake the world in your view. Fail and you’ll be cast back into the void. Ardent Reapers is a 2-player procedurally generated deck game that features phantasmagoric art generated by sorcerous algorithms. Each player tries to outscore their opponent by using a 17 card deck containing a variety of Creatures, Relics, and Actions.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Any dates

• Type: Card game

• Theme: Weird fantasy

• Number of Players: 12+

• Age: 2

• Time To Play: 15-20 minutes

About: Broken Crown is an asymmetrical kingdom-building game where you play as the leader of your nation working to rebuild your homeland after years of war and hardship. The game lives in a world rich with history and moral choices for players to confront. The way these events unfold will have a lasting effect throughout the game. Broken Crown utilizes elements of both direct player conflict and cooperation, and allows players to choose how they want to shape the gameplay through drafting, trading, battling, and building.

Game Development Inspiration: World and Story: Dark Souls and LOTR. Anything with deep yet indirect storytelling. Game Design: Both classic engine builders and conflict-heavy Amiri-trash games.

This is our first game! We are a two-man team and are both classically trained painters who design, create, and illustrate every aspect of Broken Crown. It is a passion project that has taken us almost 5 years so far and we are nearly finished.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Any weekdays afternoon

• Type: Strategy board game

• Theme: Fantasy

• Number of Players: 2-5

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: 90-180 minutes

About: The game is a fantasy hero-based 3 v 3 card battler that also supports 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 play.

Game Development Inspiration: Magic the Gathering, old school Yu-Gi-Oh and Overwatch as far as game influences go. The game has also been influenced by both western comics and Japanese manga. Oh also anime definitely, I grew up watching the Saturday morning animes and I loved them.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: February 15, 2022 - December 1, 2023

• Type: Card battler

• Theme: Fantasy

• Number of Players: 2-6

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: 10 - 15 minutes for 2 players and 30 minutes for 6 player

About: From an abandoned mountain fortress you command a group of Norwegian volunteers fighting numerically superior German forces in the early days of WW2.

Halls of Hegra is a solo-only game in the same vein as Robinson Crusoe, This war of mine, and Dead of winter. The mechanics are worker placement, bag building, and area control/ tower defense.

Game Info:

• Type: War game

• Theme: World War II

• Number of Players: 1

• Age: Adults

• Time To Play: 90 minutes

About: Statera is an asymmetric strategy game with REAL scales and a UNIQUE concept of mechanics, which gives beginners a chance to challenge experienced players. For each game, you can pick a different story to determine the basic game's setup, get a richer experience, and learn more about the game world's story. By choosing to play for the nations of Statera or their gods you can also select the game's difficulty.

The game has real scales, you can choose to play to be a god of the Statera or its inhabitant.

Tabletop Simulator Mod: Public mod coming end of March 2022!

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Anytime

• Type: Asymmetric euro game

• Theme: Fantasy

• Number of Players: 4

• Age: 14+

• Time To Play: Depends on the story - 30-90 minutes

About: Players are trying to take audience members from the foyer (a community zone). After a player has 10 audiences in their control they win the game. The game is very unique in how you win it, is thematic and immersive, but it also is familiar if you have played other TCGs it should come easily.

Game Development Inspiration: Seeing Kickstarter successes of TCG games like Grand Archive, Nostalgix, Akora, Polywog, etc.

Tabletop Simulator Mod: Mod coming soon!

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Wednesdays, Fridays 7 PM Central. Sundays 2 PM central

• Type: TCG - trading card game

• Theme: Supernatural performance troupes competing to entertain humanity for the fate of the world

• Number of Players: 2-4

• Age: 13+

• Time To Play: 15 - 30 minutes

About: Players command 1-4 Pirates and their Galleon in a Sandbox Pirate Style Roll & Play War Card Game! Multiple End Game Scenarios, including custom options, provide countless hours of adventure in this Mutinous High Sea Tale! Use High Sea Curses to disrupt your Enemies! Enhance your Friends and Foes with High Sea Fortunes! Quest for Legendary Treasure! Capture Islands, Build Pirate Harbors, and Conquer the High Seas!

There are now 4 Add-on Expansion Kits! Add craftable Weapons, Powerful Curses, Roaming Raids, and Powerful Roaming Boss Characters to your board game experience!

Game Info:

• Type: TTRPG

• Theme: Pirate adventure

• Number of Players: 1-12

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: 60+ minutes

About: Players play cards to the backline of a field where they advance to the frontline after one turn. Cards on the frontline attack in predictable ways; if there is no card to block the attack the damage instead moves the health tracker towards the enemy. Push the tracker to the enemy's side of the board to win. In between each battle players perform a Trade Phase where they may obtain new cards for their deck.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Open to any dates

• Type: Card battler

• Theme: Chess, history

• Number of Players: 2

• Age: Adults

• Time To Play: ~1 hour

About: Rogue Angels is a co-op sci-fi legacy game driven by character choices and a strong narrative with multiple paths, tactical combat with fluent turns, and action management with asymmetric abilities card play. Rogue Angels offers a gameplay ranging from infiltration, combat, and sabotage to assassination, search and rescue operations, with most missions being adaptable to player choices.

Set in the Burning Suns universe, you get the opportunity to become a hero and help save the galaxy through impactful choices for your characters and their legacies.

Game Development Inspiration: I wanted to create Mass Effect as a board game set in my universe.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: March, April, May, June, July, August (there are many)=

• Type: Tabletop sci-fi adventure

• Theme: Sci-fi

• Number of Players: 1-4

• Age: 16+

• Time To Play: 90-120 minutes

About: Vie for political dominance of the Sol System as you develop a colony of your choice through building structures, employing political puppets, making decrees, and implementing policies. Riddle your rivals with crises to slow them down or even eliminate them outright with a doomsday device! 6 factions with unique playstyles will give players plenty of choices and strategies to explore.

Game Development Inspiration: Cold War politics, Magic the Gathering, Settlers of Catan, and Sci-Fi canon.

Tabletop Simulator Mod: TTS Mod coming summer 2022

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 6 pm PST to 10 pm PST

• Type: Competitive engine builder/trading card game

• Theme: Space

• Number of Players: 2-5

• Age: Adults

• Time To Play: 12-15 minutes per player

About: Pick one of 6 robots each with unique abilities with decks full of dodge, Block, and attack cards. Use these cards in the ring to pummel your opponents but beware of positioning in the ring. Between rounds buy upgrades and cards to enhance your robot. If your battery runs dry you can reboot to continue fighting at a cost! Featuring positional strategy, deck building, and synchronous play.

Playtesting Dates & Times: Real Steel movie

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Typically Monday or Wednesday nights and weekends

• Type: Strategy card game

• Theme: Boxing robots

• Number of Players: 2

• Age: 14+

• Time To Play: Total game time between 45 to 80 minutes

About: After a successful heist the players are making their escape in a hot air balloon. Unfortunately, the balloon has sprung a leak, and the players must decide how much of their loot they can afford to keep and what, or who, they must throw over the side!

The core tension is that players must grab as much loot as they can to win, but the more they grab, the more likely they are to crash the balloon. The players must individually decide how much loot to grab, but must collectively decide when enough is enough, and it’s time to throw out the loot, or even the player who has been too greedy...

Playtesting Dates & Times: Game theory, tragedy of the commons/prisoners dilemma

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Most Sundays at 7 pm GMT

• Type: Card game

• Theme: Surviving a crashing hot air balloon in the 1800s

• Number of Players: 3-8

• Age: 9+

• Time To Play: A little over an hour

About: Boutwood is a 1-4 player cooperative boss battle board game. Each player takes on the role of animals, a group of survivors. The player's goal is to defend the forest from being corrupted and defeat the attacking boss as a team.

Game Info:

• Sign Up To Playtest: Whenever possible

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Studying Game Design (digital-focused), playing Root/Spirit Island/Townsfolk Tussle, playing Pathfinder (ttrpg)

• Type: Cooperative strategy game, boss battler

• Theme: Fantasy, animal, forest, minimalistic

• Number of Players: 1-4, best at 4

• Age: 10+

• Time To Play: 45-90 minutes, based on the player count

About: Card Kata is a fast-paced fighting card game! Punch, Kick and Jump your way to victory! Defend yourself with Dodges, Counters, and Blocks! Harness the power of Wind, Water, Fire, and Chaos to prove you are The Master! Fight wisely or risk being deemed The Wretched Dog!

Game Info:

• Playtesting Times: Immediate

• Type: Card game

• Theme: Fighting

• Number of Players: 1-6

• Age: 12+

• Time To Play: 5-10 minutes per round

About: It is the late 13th century and history is altered by the rise of the Worldbreakers, individuals who harness the mysterious substance mythium to magnify their natural talents. The Mongol princess Khutulun, a Worldbreaker and a descendent of the great Chinggis Khan, is reuniting the distant tribes of the Mongol Empire. However, other factions are rising to oppose her, each with their own agenda.
Clash with your opponent in Worldbreakers, a fast-paced, customizable two-player card game. Recruit followers to control the board. Develop location cards for power. The first player to reach ten power wins, forever reshaping history!

Game Info:

• Type: 2p card game

• Theme: Alternate 13th century Asia

• Number of Players: 1-2 players

• Age: 14+

• Time To Play: 30 Mins

About: There is a traveling carnival rumored to be a front for con artists and thieves... is THIS that carnival? By finding CLUEs and gathering points you must determine whether this carnival is the infamous CON-Carnival or just plain FUN. But you only have until 8:00!

The rules are simple. Roll the dice, move your player. You are subject to the consequences that your player lands on and you must draw a card that matches the space you landed on if any. The cards will tell you what to do. Collect CLUEs and gain Carnival points to find out what kind of carnival you are in. Once you have enough of each, use one of your voting cards (CON or FUN) to place your vote on what kind of carnival you think you're in. BUT you won't know for sure until the game is over.

This game was created as a physical version first, so besides the roll & move mechanic, there are also physical minigames that you play such as a version of Hot Potato, matching game, something similar to bowling, etc.

Game Development Inspiration: I am a comic book author of a series called The Spirit Seeds and The Con-Carnival is a board game the main character plays in the upcoming 2nd comic I am currently working on. To promote my series I created a real version of the board game that includes the characters from my series and made it available not only on Tabletop Simulator but also as a print and play for those who prefer physical games.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: It's public right now, looking for feedback whenever

• Type: Mystery game with lots of cards, minigames, and uses a roll & move mechanic

• Theme: Carnival/circus themed

• Number of Players: 2 - 8

• Age: I've played the paper version with kids from 7+ and adults 20+ and they all have really liked it so it's a game any age can enjoy.

• Time To Play: 2 players (30 minutes) 3-4 players (45 mins - 1 hour) 5 -8 players (1 hour - 2 hours)

About: A multiplayer game where you collect resources, build items, and attack each other.

Board Royale is a unique player vs player or coming soon player vs table game! The second Kickstarter is about to ship and Arvis is currently creating an expanded BR universe by moving to mobile and PC gaming too!

Game Development Inspiration: Royale games like Fortnite and Pub

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Every Sunday in April at 5 PM EST

• Type: Card game

• Theme: Fantasy, royale

• Number of Players: 8

• Age: 10+

• Time To Play: Total Time 1 hour

About: Who Stinks? is a card game that uniquely combines simple and easy-to-remember rules for the youngest audience while enabling highly strategic gameplay for older players. The game was developed with a goal in mind to bridge the gap between players of different ages, and to allow the youngest players to learn and develop basic math and strategy skills. The game's quick setup and fast-paced gameplay with many unexpected twists and turns, and unpredictable outcomes keeps everyone engaged and on the edge of their seat until the end of the game.

HOW IT WORKS: One of you stinks and you must find out who it is. Plus Cards increase the Stink Level, Minus Cards decrease the Stink Level, Special Cards enable different gameplay strategies, and Challenge Cards allow you to challenge other players. As long as the Stink Level stays in the Safe Zone – 30 or less – all is good and the game goes on. When the Stink Level gets above 30 and into the Danger Zone, the players must stop and find out who the Stinker is. The player whose card pushes the Stink Level to the Danger Zone is the main suspect and could be the Stinker! The suspect player must flip over a card from the Stink Pile to find out if it is them who stink, or prove everyone wrong:

• If you get the You Stink card, bummer, you are the Stinker and you lost the game!

• If you get the Not Me card, great, you’re saved! Quickly drop your cards and yell “Not Me!!!”. Congrats, you won the game! All other players must hurry to quickly drop their cards as well. The last player to drop their cards is the Stinker!

• If you get the Stinkbug or Stinkbomb card, you can still win! Play them against any player to start the Danger Zone battle. The player’s goal in the Danger Zone battle is to bring the Stink Level back into the Safe Zone – 30 or less – or challenge another player. If the challenged player can’t bring the Stink Level back into the Safe Zone or challenge another player they are the Stinker, and the player who challenged them wins the game! But watch out, if the challenged player brings the Stink Level back into the Safe Zone the game is back on and continues with the Safe Zone gameplay! You also win if you collect all the Plus or Minus cards, all cards of the same kind, or cards that all add up to zero.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Any time after 4/1/2022

• Type: Card Game

• Theme: Humor

• Number of Players: 2+ players (TTS Mod will be optimized for up to 6 players)

• Age: 7+

• Time To Play: Approximately 15 minutes of total playtime

About: You rush to build a city before the meteor hits. After it does, the player with the most surviving points in the form of buildings wins. New Avernus is a competitive city-builder game in the face of apocalypse. I have never heard of such a thing! MY worlds and games tend to be unique by starting at strange new premises.

Game Development Inspiration: I have 40 worlds, and have slowly been making games for each of them. This game is chasing the idea of what a God who wished only for the future of humanity, who watched humanity die off, would do with their own world. A culture of stone people called Koukyla make cities tirelessly forever over the ruins of old cities, and watch those cities fall under the wrath of their god, believing that someday they will make a city that stands the test of time and all sorts of ruin. On that day, their god will bring the organic people to inhabit it. The game experience is chasing that same goal, to make the most lasting city in the face of constant destruction.

As a queer artist, I am always thinking about the human condition in a myriad number of ways. Each of my games should explore human goals in all their paths. As a trans person especially, trying to build a body, or a city, that I believe will stand the test of time and all catastrophes is a very real and personal experience.

Game Info:

• Playtesting Dates & Times: Ready for playtesting now

• Type: Card game

• Theme: Apocalyptic competitive city building

• Number of Players: 2-4 players

• Time To Play: 1- 1.5 hours

Subscribe to the Tabletop Simulator Blog Now!

Stay up to date with all the latest TTS news through weekly blog breakdowns, recent updates, and all other Tabletop Simulator news!