WHAT IS CASTLETOWN?

CASTLETOWN GAME FEST is an indie tabletop micro-con hosted Monday & Tuesday, July 28-29, 2025, in Pittsburgh, PA.

We hope to expand Castletown into an annual event. HOWEVER, this year it is both (1) a small experiment and (2) tasked with playing & ranking the tabletop games submitted for IndieCade 2026.

While other games may be played informally (on the side) at Castletown 2025, ALL of the official programming will focus on playing & providing feedback on these submitted games. If you come to Castletown, that’s the main thing we’ll be doing, at least this year. So please keep that in mind!

LOCATION & VENUE

Castletown 2025 is graciously hosted by the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.

ADDRESS:
Carnegie Mellon University,
College of Fine Arts Building
(4919 Frew St), Room 111

ORGANIZERS

Castletown 2025 is organized, on behalf of IndieCade, by the following unpaid volunteers (in alphabetical order):

AARON MIN is a digital & tabletop game designer and CMU Masters alum. His game Three Buccaneers just won Bronze at the 2025 BGG 9-Card NanoGame competition.

ADAM BELL is an indie game designer and publisher based in Pittsburgh. He is best known for the indie RPGs Grasping Nettles, My Brain is a Stick of Butter, and the forthcoming Uneasy Lies the Head.

ASHLEY WERLINICH is a huge tabletop games fan and an Arts & Humanities Librarian at CMU Libraries, where she supports research and teaching in drama, creative media, and writing.

JONATHAN WALTON is an indie game designer and a professor at CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center. A new edition of his card game Tacklebox will be released in Aug 2025 by Possible Worlds.