Every Dungeons & Dragons campaign I’ve embarked on in my life has had two things in common: I always had a ton of unhinged fun with friends that brought us closer together, and it was an absolute nightmare to schedule regular game sessions. Playing over Discord alleviated some scheduling issues, but there was always some feeling of disconnection that came with it. It’s a common struggle within the community, but I’ve found a solution: Sunderfolk.
It’s essentially a fully-digitized TTRPG, taking players on a multi-chapter campaign that’s just as easy to play in the same room as it is miles apart. While there have been services like D&D Beyond that have helped streamline some parts of the TTRPG experience, Sunderfolk takes things to a whole new level through intuitive controls and innovative systems.
All missions, which range from big fights and boss battles to puzzles and rescuing village residents, take place on a hexagonal game board. Most of the classic concepts players are familiar with, like initiative and dice rolls, are present, though the latter has been iterated on with a fun deckbuilding twist.
Instead of a plain dice, players draw from a Fate Deck of their own design, and new ones with secondary effects are earned throughout the journey — for example, a -2 card that also sets fires nearby is a great choice for the Pyromancer class. It still feels like rolling the dice each turn, but with a bit more strategy behind it.
I also cannot overstate the fact that the game’s classes are cool as hell. All six of the choices offered — Ranger, Bard, Arcanist, Berserker, Pyromancer, and Rogue — are appealing in their own way, though I personally found myself obsessed with the Pyromancer’s control over fire and the Arcanist’s ability to cast decoys of themself. D&D fans will find they’re in some ways quite analogous to the classes they know, but with enough iteration thrown in to still feel fresh and new.
One of the best ways Sunderfolk stays true to its TTRPG roots is by, in a way, maintaining the concept of a DM. Anjali Bhimani — a frequent guest on Critical Role — brilliantly voices not just the narrator, but every character in the game. This gives Sunderfolk a narrative style I’d never experienced before in a video game, somehow making it feel cozier and more personal. It reminded me of watching my friend DMing and having to put on increasingly weird vocal affectations as the number of in-game characters grew.
Between missions, players return to the mystical village of Arden and its many anthropomorphic animal residents — all of whom are bursting with personality through Bhimani’s performance. Each player can choose which characters they’d like to speak to and which shops they wish to visit. This is another way the game somewhat embraces its roots, as I felt the same way selecting shops and chatting up characters as I did during my D&D journeys, especially because who players form relationships with will have ripple effects on the story.
These aren’t just one-dimensional characters with a few stock lines, either. I was consistently surprised during my multiple playthroughs by the way each of the six playable party members had connections to people in town, ranging from old friends to resented family members. We also created our own lore over the course of the campaign — we started romances, developed our own headcanons and inside jokes about the townspeople, and eagerly participated in one of my favorite Sunderfolk mechanics: the ability to name things.
Giving players the capability to name things like characters, foods, and locations is far too much power, and it led to some of the funniest in-game moments I’ve experienced in a long time. Some were innocent fun, like naming all the healing items in the tavern after Taco Bell items, spurring sentences like, “I need to buy a Baja Blast before this next mission,” but there were also far more inappropriate incidents I won’t repeat here. For the record, the game doesn’t have a language filter — do with that information what you will.
Secret Door, the developer behind Sunderfolk, was founded by a team that has a deep love for the genre. In a press release, studio head Chris Sigaty stated: “As long-standing tabletop gaming fans, we at Secret Door know all too well how difficult it can be to get new players together for a shared experience. Learning rules, perceived complexity, and setup times can create challenges for playing with our loved ones. Our goal with Sunderfolk is to leverage modern technology to make game night something everyone can enjoy.”
Accessibility is a goal I feel the team absolutely achieved. Though it’s a game for consoles and PC, it’s controlled through a mobile app — a concept I was very dubious of, but it works better than I ever could’ve imagined, both in terms of movement intricacies and providing useful information. One of my favorite features is coordination mode, which allows players to mark paths and targets on the map, helping immensely with long-distance planning and communication.
Players can also drop in and out of a campaign at any time, saving a lot of schedule-based headaches. When they return, they’ll be properly leveled to match the group, so no one falls behind, and the missions themselves will also tune to the size of the party. It can even be played alone, granting the solo player control over two party members at once.
The developers at Secret Door aren’t done with Sunderfolk, either. During recent blogs on publisher Dreamhaven’s website and a Reddit AMA, they have spoken of plans for a new character, a community-designed mission, and a One Shot Mode, which will allow players to embark on single missions aiming for a high score.
Maybe it was the shared visuals, our unhinged naming practices, or just the magic of Anjali Bhimani, but I felt so much more connected to my friends playing Sunderfolk than I ever did playing Dungeons & Dragons digitally. For any D&D players having scheduling troubles or looking to switch things up, Sunderfolk is undoubtedly something they should try.
