About Christopher Allen
I am fascinated by the art and craft of collaboration, and have its practice and the study of how and why collaboration works at the center of my professional career as an entrepreneur, a software architect, as well as a creator, producer & publisher in the game industry.
Gaming Background
I have been a fan and supporter of games (especially roleplaying games) for decades, with old favorites including Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest II, while my new favorites are the collaborative games that have emerged in the last couple of decades, both in the form of GMless story games as well as in board games.
Professional Experience
Computer Games
Professionally, I’ve done considerable work in the computer game industry: I was the lead designer for Castle Marrach and Lovecraft Country online games and producer for mobile adaptions of several strategy games by Reiner Knizia and Michael Schacht.
Tabletop Games
In the tabletop games industry, I produced Chaosium’s award-winning Beyond the Mountains of Madness RPG supplement, resurrected Arkham Horror cooperative board game before licensing it to Fantasy Flight Games for their bestselling 2nd edition, and I support the tabletop gaming community as the owner/publisher of the popular website RPG.net.
Recent Projects
Recently, I have been doing more personal projects, directly creating releases for the tabletop industry: I co-authored with Shannon Appelcline “Meeples Together: How and Why Cooperative Board Games Work” published by Gameplaywright with a successful Kickstarter in 2018, a successful “Quickstarter” in 2019 for the original Gate Watch, and a 2023 Kickstarter for the first two Tableau Games, my cooperative storytelling card game system.
I will be releasing games & media through Dyvers Hands Productions. I am also an avid supporter of other game designers on Kickstarter and Patreon.
“The best stories are the ones we tell together!”