| Bluebeard's Bride | |
| Designer: | Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson |
| Illustrator: | Rebecca Yanovskaya, Juan Ochoa, KRING, Jabari Weathers |
| Publisher: | Magpie Games |
| Date: | 2017 |
| Genre: | tabletop role-playing game, gothic horror |
| System: | Powered by the Apocalypse |
| Players: | 3-5 plus gamemaster |
| Playing Time: | 2-4 hours |
| Ages: | adults only |
| Skills: | role-playing, storytelling |
Bluebeard's Bride is a gothic horror tabletop role-playing game based on the Bluebeard folktale. It was designed and written by Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson, and published by Magpie Games in 2017. Players represent five aspects of a woman's mind as she explores the mansion of her frightening new husband.[1]
Bluebeard's Bride uses an adaptation of the Powered by the Apocalypse system. Players take on the roles of feminine archetypes that together form the mind of one woman. Matt Baume for Vice describes these as "Animus, which embodies strength; Virgin, representing obedience; Witch, suggesting sinfulness; Fatale, for sensuality; and a Mother who soothes."
Bluebeard's Bride was funded by a Kickstarter campaign in October–November 2016 that raised $129,820 from 1,745 backers.[2]
Bluebeard's Bride won the IndieCade Grand Jury Award in 2018.[3] It won the 2018 Indie Game Developer Network awards for "Game of the Year" and "Best Art." The expansion Book of Rooms also won the 2019 award for "Best Art."[4]
Bluebeard's Bride was nominated for the 2018 ENNIE Awards for "Best Production Value."[5] The expansion Book of Lore was nominated for the 2019 ENNIE Award for "Best RPG Related Product." The expansion Book of Rooms was nominated for the Indie Game Developer Network award in 2019 for "Product of the Year." The expansion Book of Mirrors was nominated for the 2019 ENNIE Awards for "Best Cover" and "Best Layout and Design."[6]
Rebekah Krum for CBR called it one of the ten best Powered by the Apocalypse games.[7] Jaina Gray for Wired recommended it as one of the six best games to play remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.[8] Rachel Beck for Dread Central writes, "The story itself has the elegant simplicity of a fairytale," and it "is an explicitly feminine horror piece, and at its heart it's a game about systemic social and physical violence towards women."[9] Sharang Biswas for Dicebreaker praised the game mechanics as an expression of the Bluebeard fable's theme: "The game delivers its central ideas of feminist and feminine horror, using powerlessness as a game mechanic and employing supernatural hyperbole of real-world misogyny to highlight anti-feminist thought."[10]
Magpie Games released Bluebeard's Bride: Book of Rooms in 2018, Bluebeard's Bride: Book of Lore and Bluebeard's Bride: Book of Mirrors in 2019, and Bluebeard's Bride: Booklet of Keepsakes in 2020.[11]