Critical Role publisher announces two-player cinematic storytelling game

Darrington Press, the Critical Role-focused publisher, has announced that it will be releasing a two-player storytelling board game.

Called Till the Last Gasp, the upcoming board game will enable players to act out their own dramatic fighting scenarios in a cinematic fashion. Centered around various scenarios wherein characters are in direct conflict with one another, Till the Last Gasp sees players exchanging blows, revealing secrets and collaborating on a shared story between their characters. Designed to last around an hour, the board game is inspired by the climaxes of cinema history, whether it’s a superhero movie, an action flick or a fantasy story.

As a two-player board game, each person will be in control of a character with a history with the other. Through a confrontation, players will roleplay their chosen character – or characters they’ve created themselves – in a variety of different scenarios. Depending on the scenario, players will be able to use various environmental elements to tell their story: such as grabbing a vase and flinging it at the other or swinging from a nearby chandelier to escape their assailant.

Unlike tabletop roleplaying games, players won’t need to do any preparation before playing Till the Last Gasp and won’t need a mediator, though there are rules for an optional mediator should a third player want to take the role. Besides the characters and scenarios featured in the core box – as well as any players create themselves – Till the Last Gasp will be released alongside a set of premade characters based on the party of Vox Machina, who were the main characters for the first campaign of the Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role. Those stores that are members of the Darrington Press Guild will be able to exclusively stock the Vox Machina characters set.

Till the Last Gasp was designed by Will Hindmarch, a developer on the storytelling game Vampire: The Requiem – part of the World of Darkness RPG universe – and lead designer and head writer on the online storytelling game Storium. Additional design was completed by Alex Roberts, the creator of two-player roleplaying game Starcrossed and For the Queen.

Darrington Press is a studio founded by Ivan Van Norman – co-owner of Hunters Entertainment and actor – as a publisher of board games and roleplaying games based on the Critical Role actual play series. The company’s first title was Uk’otoa, a semi-co-op board game based on the sinister god featured in the second campaign of Critical Role.

Till the Last Gasp will be available sometime in February/March at a retail price of $40 (£32) from the Critical Role stores and shops, before being released in stores that are part of the Darrington Press Guild.