Alex Roberts | |
|---|---|
 Roberts at PAX Unplugged (2023) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. | |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Game designer |
| Notable work | For the Queen (game), Star Crossed (game) |
| Website | www |
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.
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]
| 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] |
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