When Secret Door invited me to play Sunderfolk at its Irvine office last month, I didn't know what to expect. The pitch was “a unique spin on the RPG genre” with “tabletop DNA”, which is about as vague as a pit💎ch can get.

In fact, I didn't even know the title of the game until I showed up at the studio. And while I get plenty of nondescript pitches for indie games all the time, Sunderfolk’s stood out th❀anks to its remarkable pedigree.

Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime announced his new game company back in 2020, with then newly-established Secret Door as one of its two studios. The team is made up of game industry veterans with credits on Warcraft 3, StarCraft 2, and League of Legends, just to name a few. I didn't need ♍to know what Sunderfolk wa🐟s to know it was going to be something special.

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‘Special’ turned out to be a huge understatement. Sunderfolk isn't just a u🌳nique spin on RPGs, it's an entirely new kind of game. It's a co-op tactical RPG in the vein of Gloomhaven, but instead of gathering around a table to play a board game, you and your friends gather around a TV and use your phones as a controller. By mixing elements of tabletop games, tactical RPGs, and (of all things) Jackbox, Secret Door aims to reinvent game night with a whole new kind of experience.

Chris Sigaty, studio head at Secret Door, is an avid board game player and fan of games like Gloomhaven, but noticed some barriers to entry that sometimes turn people off from playing them. The extensive set up and clean up is time consuming, learning the rules is difficult, and keeping track of progress between sessions can be a challenge. Sigaty was in🃏spired to create a game that captured the excitement and collaboration of tabletop gaming in a way that’s much more approachable than traditional tabletop games.

What I loved about Sunderfolk is how it makes tabletop gameplay so much more manageable without watering down the experience. Its mission-based gameplay offers crunchy turn-based co-op strategy, player progression, and collaborative storytelling - all t♓he things that makes tabletop RPGs so interesting, packaged in a way that anyone can pick up and play.

By taking all of the board game elements - character sℱheets, dice, items, bestiaries, etc. - and organizing them on menus each person can access on their phones, Sunderfolk can offer all of the deღpth without the intimidation.

It can't be overstated how much using your phone as both a database and a controller transforms the tabletop experience. Even if you've never played Gloomhaven or a tactical RPG before, you have a baseline familiarity with Sunderfolk if you're a smartphone user - which is practically everyone. It has an ingenious c🐻ontrol method that lets 🧜you swipe along the screen to move your character around on the grid that’s both novel and intuitive, leaning into the way people are already used to operating their phones to further minimize this genre’s typical barriers to entry.

Plus, making people use their phone to play keeps people off of their phones, wꩲhich is typically the downfall of any good game night.

As a board gamer myself, I'm impressed by how transformꦬative Sunderfolk's experience is. Only needing one hand to hold a phone as 𝓀opposed to a two-hand grip on a controller makes it more casual and social than even a low-impact video game like Mario Kart, which is important for maintaining the game night vibe. You still have a free hand for snacking, holding a cocktail, or more realistically, pointing and yelling at your friends when they screw over the party.

It's also a lot more comfortable and convenient to have everyone spread out on couches rather than hunched over a board on a kitchen table. The presentation is alw🌄ays clean and perfect, and you can use lighting to set the mood since you don't have to worry about the visibility of tiny text on a card.

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There's definitely something to be said about the tactile quality of a board game - not to mention the benefits of not looking at a screen for once in your life. I don't think what Sunderfolk offers is necessarily better than playing an actual board game, but it could be a great stepping stone for people who feel intiꦯmidated by them.

That's exactly what Sunderfolk wants to be, and it does a lot of small flavorful things to bring elements of table🅠top in. For example, the game master, who serves as the narrator of the story, voices all of the NPC characters you encounter just like a real GM🦋 would. There are also random opportunities for players to name enemy minions you encounter, which will be permanent throughout the entire campaign any time your group encounters that enemy. Sunderfolk is made by people that love tabletop as a way to bring more people into the hobby by showing them how easy and fun roleplaying can be.

I'm excited to share my love of board games with my friends and family that don't really get it too. The problem with mash-up games is that rather than appealing to one type of fan or the other, they typically only appeal to those who are fans of both. Sunderfolk is a video game/board game🎐 that has a lot to offer people who don't play video games or board games thanks to its unique presentation that makes it easy for anyone to pick up and play. Secret Door set out to reimagine game night, and Sunderfolk does justಌ that.

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