Each title begins with a historical question. The game is our attempt to answer it through play. From intimate two-player encounters to full-table simulations, the Cold Alchemy catalogue spans format, era, and scale — unified by a commitment to fidelity and elegance.
Across five tense rounds representing five decades of superpower rivalry, players assume the roles of heads of state, intelligence directors, and back-channel envoys navigating the ideological freeze of the Cold War. The goal is not victory in the conventional sense — it is survival, and the slow, grinding accumulation of influence.
Mechanics include asymmetric information, hidden allegiance cards, and a tension track that governs the probability of escalation into open conflict. No two games play alike. Every negotiation carries the weight of history.
Enquire Design NotesOrder holds the board. Flux holds the initiative. In this two-player confrontation, one side commands the rigid hierarchy of an established empire — powerful, structured, and expensive to maintain. The other wields the volatile energy of a movement at the edge of transformation: faster, cheaper, and capable of rewriting its own rules mid-game.
Currently in late playtesting. Crucible is scheduled for a limited print run in late 2025, with an educational edition to follow for classroom and workshop use.
Follow DevelopmentIn the age of colonial cartography, maps were not merely documents — they were arguments. Cartographer's Burden puts players in the role of surveyors commissioned by competing powers, tasked with mapping a contested territory while navigating the competing claims of indigenous communities, rival expeditions, and their own patrons' ambitions.
A cooperative game with an asymmetric narrative engine. Designed for classroom and workshop deployment alongside a broader historical curriculum on the politics of representation.
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