CMON Purchases Award-Winning RPG Studio

CMON Limited, the maker of Marvel United, Zombicide, and Cthulhu: Death May Die, has announced its purchase of award-winning tabletop RPG studio Two Little Mice. CMON has purchased Two Little Mice's portfolio of games, which includes the ENNIE Award winner Broken Compass and Household. CMON will continue development and support of both titles with the aim of bringing the games to a wider audience. Additionally, Two Little Mice designers Riccardo 'Rico' Sirignano, Simone Formicola, and Daniela Giubellini will join CMON's roleplaying games and narrative board games division, which recently produced the Zombicide Chronicles tabletop RPG and is currently working on Trudvang Legends, a narrative board game.

Broken Compass is a roleplaying game heavily inspired by the likes of Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider and other adventuring franchises. Players create an adventurer searching for treasure, choosing from different backgrounds and occupations that grant them proficiencies in various types of skills. Players make a check by rolling a pool of D6s (the size of which is determined both by your proficiency in a skill and whether you have advantage or disadvantage) and you succeed on a check if multiple dice land on the same number. The difficulty of a check determines how many dice need to land on the same number, with checks ranging from basic (two dice need to show the same number) to impossible (five dice need to show the same number.) Seasons of Broken Compass can take place either in the 1930s or in the more modern era of 1999.

The purchase of Broken Compass positions CMON to take advantage of the growing popularity of tabletop roleplaying games. Several large tabletop roleplaying game Kickstarter campaigns exceeded $1 million or more this year, many of which featured premiere IPs or were boosted by premium miniatures and figures. As a maker of premium miniatures that specializes in large Kickstarters, it seems like a smart play to bring on a team of award-winning designers to either develop RPG games that tie into existing CMON IP or allow CMON to compete for tabletop roleplaying game licenses of other top-tier franchises.