Together, become a weird ecology. When the world shatters, how will we survive?
Assemblage is a science-inspired eco-fantasy TTRPG in which 2-6 players collaboratively build the story of an interdependent ecosystem on the verge of environmental disaster.
Together, become a weird ecology. When the world shatters, how will we survive?
Assemblage is a science-inspired eco-fantasy TTRPG in which 2-6 players collaboratively build the story of an interdependent ecosystem on the verge of environmental disaster.
In this game, you will:
Use cards and a guidebook to imagine your own unique and fantastic creatures
Craft the story of an ecological assemblage: a group of species tossed together in a strange habitat
Encounter an environmental disaster, and play to find out how (and if) you survive
This card-based, GM-less story game can be played in as little as 90 minutes — with flexibility to tell a longer story if you choose.
For fans of reflective story & worldbuilding games like Dialect and Microscope, Assemblage is the perfect addition to any TTRPG table seeking revolutionary, expansive play.
You'll begin by shuffling the Habitat cards and dealing out three at random. Together, you'll choose which card to use. Here are a few of the habitats you might choose from...
Exploration
Once you’ve selected a habitat, you'll shuffle the Exploration cards, and place them face-down next to your chosen habitat. Then it's time to take turns drawing Exploration cards. Here are a few of the questions you might answer in this phase...
Assemblage Creation
Now it is time to create your assemblage. You'll take turns selecting an ecological relationship with the person next to you, and then answering the question on the Relationship Card to deepen your understanding of your species' shared biology...
Seasons
Once your assemblage exists, you'll take turns answering the question on the season card — defining the current season, and characterizing its unique environmental qualities. Then, you'll roleplay events that take place within those seasons.
As you play out seasons events, your assemblage's history will unfold before you in a series of short, impactful scenes.
The Cataclysm
Finally, it's time for the moment when everything shifts. You will choose a Cataclysm card to frame the disaster that transforms your assemblage forever. As this tragedy unfolds, you will discover how it impacts your assemblage...
As the game concludes, you'll make your way into the future, telling myths, legends, and memories of the way the world was — grieving what was lost, and witnessing the resilience leading to how things will be.
The game will come in a handy ~5"x8" portable box that contains:
Guidebook containing rules of play, safety tools, and help with facilitating a GM-less game for the first time
Habitat cards to inspire fantastical habitats
Ecological relationship cards to establish species interdependence and conflict
Event cards to inspire scenes and roleplay, and let you tell the story of your assemblage over time
Cataclysm cards to outline the depth and extent of the crisis your assemblage will face
Keystone species and Extinct species role cards that define player species who shape the story in special ways
A pad of tear-off species placards so you can name (and illustrate!) your species
This beautifully-illustrated physical edition will benefit from custom art by Manfish, Inc. The goal is to provide you with a box containing everything you need to play Assemblage — and a TTRPG that's easy to carry in your purse or backpack!
We've created a complete digital version of Assemblage on screentop.gg, where you can read the guidebook and see the full complement of the Assemblage card deck!
This digital version uses stand-in art, and represents the most up-to-date version of the Assemblage rulebook. We invite you to run a digital game with your TTRPG group and then tell us what you think!
Build Weird Ecologies AND Punch Nazis for Bonus Rewards…
Scryptid Games is partnering with our friends at Stop Drop and Roll Games to offer TWO exclusive rewards to anyone who backs both Assemblage and Stop Drop and Roll’s Why We Fight during Pocketopia.
Why We Fight is a solarpunk TTRPG in which you play a crew of eco-punks fighting fascism to build a brighter, greener future.
Everyone who backs BOTH games will receive Collective Action, a game duet that showcases how Assemblage can be used to create settings for other TTRPGs, and the expansive possibilities of crew creation and group action in new environments and scenarios in Why We Fight.
This exclusive expansion content includes two PDFs and a set of print-and-play cards inviting you to create and play as both a group of humans encountering a weird ecology AND a weird ecology experiencing the incursion of a group of humans.
Use the Assemblage world-building framework to create a weird ecology on an island located in the world of Why We Fight — and use Why We Fight’s crew creation framework to create a team of scientists investigating that weird ecology. Then use the print-and-play cards to “duet” the crew’s actions and the ecology’s unique response.
🔒 $4,500 - Initial funding goal. Basic Buy-In: Covers game production for the guidebook and illustrated playing card-sized cards.
🔒$6,000 - Stretch Goal 1. The luxe version you deserve to treat yourself to. At this level we’ll make sure every backer gets a slicker version of the final game: High quality black-core cards, more illustrations, and a more tactile, durable guidebook.
🔒$10,000 - Stretch Goal 2. Bigger cards! Once this goal is unlocked, we’ll be able to level up the game to include full color tarot-sized cards.
🔒 $20,000- Stretch Goal 3. Little guys! When this goal is unlocked, we’ll upgrade the three key role cards to cute, wooden meeples screen-printed with illustrator Jill Colbert of Manfish Inc.’s weird and beautiful cryptid art.
🎲 WELCOME TO POCKETOPIA—a celebration of portable easy-to-learn tabletop games featuring 50+ creators launching together on BackerKit from March 13 - April 3!
🏆 Here’s how you can earn exclusive event rewards:
Cross-Collab Freebies: Look for projects marked as Cross-Collab partners! Back both projects to earn a FREE reward from each creator. The more pairs you support, the more freebies you collect!
Pocketopia Dice Bag: Back 6 projects or more to unlock this exclusive reward, surveyed and shipped by BackerKit.
⚔️ Rewards at a glance:
2 FREE rewards for every Cross-Collab pair you back (one from each creator!)
1 FREE limited edition Pocketopia 2025 Dice Bag when you back 6+ projects
⭐ PRO TIP: Maximize your freebies by supporting Cross-Collab pairs! For example, support 3 Cross-Collab pairs (6 projects) to earn up to 6 exclusive freebies while unlocking the Dice Bag!
*Only pledges to physical reward tiers or main digital offerings (if no physical items are offered) qualify towards earning these limited FREEBIES. Please refer to individual project pages for unlock requirements.
Assemblage will be published in September 2025. The follow up to Scryptid Games' smash hits Ball of the Wild, Psychic Trash Detectives, Against the Gloom, and Golden Good Girls, this TTRPG will bring the same queer, punk ethos that you know and love–but this time packaged as a card game, all wrapped up in beautiful box!
Designer: Nat Mesnard
Nat Mesnard is a game designer and writer based in NYC, and a co-founder of Scryptid Games and Unquiet Games. They have published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Autostraddle, Bodega, Blackbird, Kenyon Review Online, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Nat’s game Banned Together, co-designed with Elana Bell Bogdan, is a recipient of funding from the NYU Game Center Incubator in 2024-25, and their tabletop roleplaying games have won multiple ENNIE Awards. They teach interactive fiction and game design at Pratt Institute and Rutgers University–Camden, and for the literary magazine One Story; Nat also freelances in the tabletop industry, working with 9th Level Games, Restoration Games, and Black Oak Workshop to bring roleplaying games, board games, and game accessories successfully to market.
Should we reach our funding goal, you will be charged for shipping after the crowdfunding campaign for Assemblage concludes, via a survey sent by our BackerKit Pledge Manager. For Assemblage, we will be shipping to US, UK & EU, and Canada. Estimated shipping costs for a single copy of the game:
U.S. $10 UK & EU $25 Canada $20
While we would like to send to customers worldwide, we are not offering global shipping for this campaign because the cost of shipping to many countries could easily meet or exceed the cost of the game itself. If you live outside of the regions where we're shipping, we'd like to invite you to use the free screentop.gg instance of Assemblage to play digitally, or to back at the Digital Only tier to receive a print-and-play version of Assemblage to play at your table.
We estimate fulfillment will take place 8 months following the conclusion of the Assemblage campaign, in early November, 2025. This means that you can back Assemblage with the confidence that it will arrive in time for holiday gifts!
