A Cards-Based RPG About the Messy Lives of Teenage Monsters

Monsterhearts: Welcome to Drowned Lake is an innovative indie dialogue-driven RPG with card mechanics. In this modern supernatural teen melodrama, the player controls a supernatural teenager in a small town in northern British Columbia. It will be launching on Kickstarter in Summer 2025.

Currently in design, Monsterhearts: Welcome to Drowned Lake is a dialogue-driven RPG that introduces card mechanics to the Powered by the Apocalypse game engine. Its protagonist is a supernatural teenager stuck deep in the interior of late-1990s Canada. Faced with the murder of their best friend, the player must unravel local mysteries and find their footing among bloodthirsty supernatural factions… all before the mysterious Secret Eater can destroy it all. 

Based on the original Monsterhearts tabletop role-playing game, designed in Canada by Avery Alder, the game is about “the messy lives of teenage monsters.” Using branching narratives and unique card mechanics, it creates an interactive experience about teen angst, personal horror, and queer identity. The game explores the terror and confusion of having a body that's changing without your permission, the clawing dread of teen angst, and the thrill of finding your people after a lifetime of isolation.

With clever time loop mechanics and embedded modding, Welcome to Drowned Lake takes what’s great about the original Monsterhearts and brings it to your computer. 

Check out the trailer that the incredible Naughty Lemur team made for their prototype. You'll see lots of these elements in the final game.