Recreate Greta Gerwig's Little Women with this coming-of-age tabletop roleplaying game

The new tabletop role-playing game, Castles in the Air, will let players recreate their favorite coming-of-age stories.

Castles in the Air was inspired by classic coming-of-age period dramas such as Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (which was adapted into a 2019 film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, and Timothee Chalamet) and Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which was adapted into a television series in 2017 by Netflix.

In the upcoming role-playing game, player characters will grow together from children to adults during the historical era known as the Gilded Age, which took place in the U.S. between the 1870s and 1890s and saw an increase in industrialization, economic growth, and migration to the U.S. Castles in the Air is a collaborative storytelling game in which players construct narratives that focus on the wonders and fears of childhood, before addressing the joys and hardships of adulthood.

Players begin the tabletop roleplaying game as a close-knit group of children, all with high expectations for their future and much quieter lives at present. In this phase of the story, players develop a shared childhood doing the things that rural, financially supported children did during that time: such as playing on local farms, swimming in lakes, and stargazing.

As the player characters grow older, they will begin to explore other feelings and ideas that come with age. Characters in the group may develop a crush on someone or form a heated rivalry with one of the other local children. Throughout this time, the group of players will grow together, before eventually reaching adulthood and possibly finding themselves drifting apart as life takes them in different directions, perhaps only to meet again.

Players will be able to create their characters in Castles in the Air by choosing from a variety of roles inspired by classic archetypes, such as the troublemaking scoundrel, the studious bookworm, or the spoiled princess. Add to this a dream, childhood relationships, a familiar environment, and a sworn enemy, and players will even be able to create their favorite characters from films such as Little Women or Anne of Green Gables.

Castles in the Air was designed and written by Melia Carraway, with contributions from the co-founders of the roleplaying game's publisher, Storybrewer's Roleplaying, Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon, who also co-designed Good Society: a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by the works of Jane Austen.

The Castles in the Air crowdfunding campaign is on Kickstarter until June 9, with a pledge of AU$99 (£52 / $77) for backers to get a physical copy of the game by March 2025. Alternatively, players can get a digital version for a pledge of AU$34 (£18 / $26).