The conclusion is already in place. You have failed. The Queen is dead.
Our Queen Crumbles is a collaborative storytelling game for 2-4 players about revenge, inevitable death, and saying goodbye to those you love. On May 1st, 2025, it will be back on BackerKit for a new and revised Hallowed Edition.
The game is set in the weird-fantasy land of Halloway, where the dead whisper to those who listen and the fundamental forces of nature can be bent to your will. The game is meant to be played in a single sitting, and is focused on developing interesting and dynamic characters over the course of a few hours—no matter your roleplaying experience.
Each player will choose a playbook from the available character archetypes and all together share two table playbooks, The Queen, and The Assassin. Playbooks contain an assortment of character traits, items, and abilities for the players to choose from as they travel on their journey. Instead of character advancement that makes you more powerful, Our Queen Crumbles features character advancement that makes you more interesting—every box you mark on your sheet drives the story forward, giving you a better picture of the character you play.
Who is the Little Stone God? Why does the Knight of Whispers carry the Salt and Iron crowns? What is the Tree Under the Mountain? Only you can decide.
The game trusts players to come up with conflict, intrigue, and answers to the questions they have.
Written by Jason Brown in 2019 and first published as a 24-page zine, Our Queen Crumbles eventually found its way to NessunDove for an Italian translation: Nostra Maestà Infranta was published as a pick-up-and-play boxed edition with reusable game materials, including 12 alternate characters from the Retainers expansion to make the game even more replayable.
With the help of a BackerKit campaign set to launch in May 2025, this expanded and revised 2021 edition will be the foundation for the complete Hallowed Edition, rounded out with variant playbooks for the Queen and the Assassin, an alternate map with different backdrops for your grim adventures, and loads of extra art by the original illustrator Al Lukeheart.
The campaign will fund the production of a boxed edition of Our Queen Crumbles in English and Italian, with 30 reusable laminated cards containing the rules of the game and every handout you need to play. Write on the sheets with any water-based marker, lead your Queen to her final rest over the course of an evening, then erase the remains of your game and do it all over again.
BackerKit basics
Pre-launch page: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/53ac383f-49da-4b3f-a53e-642b3ca80cc4/landing
Launch date: May 1 2025.
The campaign will fund the print run of Our Queen Crumbles: Hallowed Edition in English and Italian, with new art by Al Lukeheart and new backdrops written by NessunDove.
The boxed set will include:
- A set of revised rules, combining simplicity and depth for an intense single-session experience
- Two playable maps of the Queendom of Halloway, each with different backdrops
- Two Queens and two Assassins to make every game different
- Sixteen playable characters, each weirder than the last.
Team
Jason Brown is a writer, game designer and IT engineer based in Anaheim, California. He spends his days reading on the beach and discussing the pitfalls of capitalism. Our Queen Crumbles was his entry to Game Chef 2019.
Al Lukeheart is an LGBTQIA+ fantasy and sci-fi illustrator with a passion for tabletop role-playing games. They graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Illustration, where they developed a vibrant style and a passion for working with indie game designers.
NessunDove is an Italian game design and localization labyrinth made up by writer Oscar Biffi, artist Maria Guarneri and translator Chiara Locatelli. Together they follow games every step of the way, from writing to testing, from printing to selling. Twice-winners of the Italian Game Chef and of the 2021 Indie Groundbreaker Award for Game of the Year.
