Some games exist on their own, while others are tied in with Nerdhaus Worlds. Everything here has been published for the general public or is in playtest.
BITE
A social deduction party game about monsters infiltrating your increasingly paranoid village, BITE is a party game for your inner beast. Random roles determine which action cards you can play on your conversation partner at the end of your one-on-one turn. Kill them off, convert them, or learn their secrets to help guarantee that your side has the most living players by the end of the night. For 6 to 17 players with options for the moderator/Mayor to play as a role within the game, played in under two hours. Visit the BITE page for more information, support material, and an RPG scenario for use with the Crisis RPG engine.
Cabal
Cabal is a game of cyberpunk espionage set against the backdrop of the Martian Civil War. You take the role of one of the elusive claimants to governmental power, content to manipulate the situation in secret until your rivals are defeated and you can claim Mars. The game splits focus between your Agents in the field and their actions in rival regions, as well as your efforts back home to develop your faction’s capabilities. All the while, Martian history is still being written as random World Events continue to complicate your plans. Will you be the faction to gain the most Renown and the trust of the Martian people? Or will the crown fall to another Cabal?
Cabal is in playtest and is currently on hiatus as we determine how to bring a game of this scale (200+ cards and dozens of physical components) into reality, much less to market.
Crisis
A storygame RPG engine for tales on the brink of disaster, Crisis helps you tell stories of looming disaster without dice or a GM. Answer setting questions as a table to customize your experience, and then take turns as Protagonist and Foil exploring your character and testing each others’ limits. Wager your tokens to take the upper hand in conflicts, but keep an eye on those disaster clocks…
Crisis is in playtest over at the Nerdhaus Games itch.io store.
The Good That Zoos Do
This game is for 3 or more players, one of whom serves as the Facilitator who helps build the world and play the Cryptid your Agents are attempting to collect. Both Agents and the Cryptid are generated during the session of this zero-prep one-shot RPG, with the Cryptid revealing its Traits during its ill-fated encounter with disposable NPCs in the cold open.
Challenges are resolved with a combination of luck and planning when it comes to the card-based mechanics of this game, which makes use of a standard deck of playing cards for character creation, challenge resolution, and randomization. No two sessions will play the same!
The Good That Zoos Do is in playtest over at the Nerdhaus Games itch.io store and is based on the Zoo Podcast.
Heist
Your rivals issued a challenge: who among you is the biggest name in international thievery? You have time to gather a crew, get moving, and make a name for yourself. Without risk, there can be no reward. Keep in mind: “Honor among thieves” is really more of a suggestion.
Players assume the role of a criminal mastermind, evaluating the opportunities presented to them and collecting a team of fellow ne’er-do-wells to help them achieve their goals. On their turn, a player must decide if they are going to gather resources, do some legwork on a job, or jump in and steal something. Botch enough jobs and you may find your whole crew in jail! Cash is temporary, but glory lives forever.
The game plays 2-6 players and runs approximately 20 minutes per player (so a 6 player game may run 1.5-2 hours). Masterminds have full backgrounds in the rulebook and most of the jobs describe actual famous thefts throughout modern times. (Details have been changed to protect the less-than-innocent)
Heist is currently in public playtest, with an intended Kickstarter campaign for printing and art. Possible expansions include Heist: Champion City which would expand the world to include superheroes, villains, and mad science. Future expansions may include additional genres, like chrono-themed masterminds who can steal items throughout history and add a Temporal difficulty.
Untamed Suburbia
Players take on the role of animals, both pet and primal, to work together on issues within their suburban community in this Powered by the Apocalypse RPG. Yards back up to fields or streams, small pockets of trees hide deer and other wild animals, and household pets have some significant freedom during their days (and nights, if they don’t come home for dinner!). How do you solve your problems when you don’t have thumbs?
Animal PCs are created by drawing a number of cards from a deck of animal Traits and stat options. Which Traits you select determine your species, but only you can pick your personality, background, and name. Questions help lead you to understand your packmates a little better and define the bonds that will unite all of you across the adventures you’ll share in your own neck of the woods.