Coming to a Tabletop Near You: Children of Morta
One of my favorite video games in recent years is Dead Mage’s Children of Morta, a fantasy RPG in which you play members of the Bergson family who have pledged their lives to protect their sacred homeland from a magical corruption. As I wrote in my review from 2022:
I’ve looking forward to playing Dead Mage’s roguelike dungeon-crawler for a long time — and it did not disappoint. Put simply, Children of Morta is a thoroughly delightful game with an engaging storyline and gorgeous design.
There’s definitely a nostalgic aspect to Children of Morta thanks to its pixellated design and old school-feeling gameplay. If you’re of a certain age, it might even be tempting to forget that you’re playing on a modern game system in the year of our Lord 2022, and instead, are making your way through the game’s many dungeons on your trusty ol’ Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo.
To its credit, though, Children of Morta doesn’t rely on mere nostalgia to draw you in. It doesn’t have to, not with its rich narrative, fantastical world-building, and most importantly, a colorful cast of characters in the Bergson family.
For as much I loved Children of Morta, I somehow missed the Kickstarter campaign to adapt it into a tabletop board game that captures the original’s characters, gameplay, and mechanics.
Children of Morta: The Board Game is a cooperative adventure game that features simultaneous turns for fast-paced gameplay, a unique shared bag-building mechanism, permanent character development, and an emphasis on family growth and interconnected cooperation. Players take on the roles of the Bergson family, working together to navigate dangers and reveal the secrets of the spreading corruption in their beloved land. Enjoy two modes of play: Story Mode (campaign), offering a captivating narrative journey with permanent upgrades, or Family Trials, a rogue-like experience with each session resetting your progress.
The campaign, which was created by Vancouver-based Roomiz Games and ran throughout the month of May, was incredibly successful. Nearly $220,000 CAD was raised, which unlocked multiple stretch goals like new chapters and characters. Fortunately for folks like me who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign, Roomiz Games will begin accepting late pledges at the end of July.
Children of Morta was a truly special gaming experience when I played it on my Xbox several years ago, and I look forward to seeing how Roomiz Games translates that experience to the tabletop. On that note, Rolling Solo posted an in-depth video overview of Children of Morta’s set-up and gameplay prior to the Kickstarter campaign’s launch.
