About Us
Origin Story
Hive Frog Studio was founded in 2018 in Philadelphia with the goal of creating fun content that supports the indie gaming community. We are a collective of friends who were brought together by our shared love of adventure, mechanics, and polyhedral dice.
The team is currently developing supplemental materials for Pathfinder 2nd Edition, as well as streaming some of the games we play in our free time on Twitch.
Hive Frog Studio started as “Over the Bridge,” a board game for an undergraduate class project Encouraged by the feedback from playtests, the team continued to work on the game as a side project long after the class was over, but under a new name: “Gates of Adventure.”
In September 2017, the team participated in the inaugural PAX Unplugged convention, an offshoot of the popular PAX game convention devoted entirely to board and tabletop games, as part of the Philadelphia Game Makers Guild. The team went to Keystone 2018 and returned to PAX Unplugged 2018 to further playtest “Gates of Adventure,” thus learning more and more what it meant to be game designers and continually encouraged by the positive feedback from playtesters.
In early 2019, the team paused development on Gates of Adventure Card Game as half of the team began working on their capstone project “Resilience,” an award-winning sci-fi city-builder game about the refugee crisis.
Once we had all graduated in June 2020, we reconvened, refocused on publishing content for existing TTRPG systems, and streaming ourselves playing indie games.
Learn more about Resilience by Sungrazer Studio and the Philadelphia Game Makers Guild here.
Meet the Hive
The Faces Behind Hive Frog Studio
Lily Lauben
Pronouns: She/Her
The Ert
Favorite Color: All cool colors, but especially green
Favorite Fruit: All of them, but especially pomegranates
Hullo, I am Lily, and I think at least nominally all of this is my fault. When I was very young, I decided one of my life goals was to draw dragons as part of my career, so I went into game design, where I can design cool mechanics, code digital games, and draw lots of cool things, including dragons. When I started making games, my friends were awesome enough to start helping out. Very quickly, it became apparent that they were each vital to the team in their own way, helping with mechanics, outreach, and organization so I was free to focus my attention on my specialty: art. Thus, Hive Frog Studio was born.
Tristin Hauptman
Pronouns: She/They
The Design Czar
Favorite Color: I guess purple
Favorite Fruit: GRAPES
Hi, I’m one of the founding members of Hive Frog. My reason for helping start this company was mostly as an organizational tool for the more marketable game-related projects I would’ve done anyways. Many of my friends decided they wanted in too, so that’s where we’re at! I graduated from La Salle University in 2019 with two Bachelor’s degrees, one in Economics and one in Computer Science, both of which contribute to a data-oriented outlook helpful in my day job as a data analyst. My most consuming hobby is my home D&D game, but I also enjoy video games, miniature painting, and learning whatever new skill I’ve most recently decided to try to pick up. My job on the team is “design”, which spans from game mechanic ideation to rules text writing to narrative theming. I want to be your friend unless proven otherwise.
Justin Roszko
Pronouns: He/Him
The Computer Whisperer
Favorite Color: The Blood of my computers- err…. Red.
Favorite Fruit: Oranges. All the Oranges.
I’m Justin Roszko, the maintainer of random computers that keep the operation running. I joined this company back in 2017 when I was asked to play a game some friends were working on. Then I kept playing, started suggesting design work and changes, and just kept doing that. I graduated from Drexel University with a BS in Computer Science and I’ve continued doing computer related things since. Lately in my free time, I’ve been playing PF2e and just a truly random assortment of video games. I’ve also been working on building out some discord bots. For the team, I manage our servers and IT related needs as well as work on ideation of the mechanics and the rules text of things we create. It’s easiest to find me anywhere since I’m usually tethered to a computer at all times.
Rory Lane
Pronouns: She/Her
The Organization Gremlin
Favorite Color: Blu
Favorite Fruit: Blueberries
Greetings, I'm Rory. I joined the team in 2017 when I happened to live with Tristin and Lily when they were starting to develop Over the Bridge. After a few months of being their nearby victim volunteer playtester, I officially joined to help make more interesting games. I graduated from Drexel University with a BS in Computer Science and spent my senior year working on Resilience, an interesting game about space refugees. In my free time, I bake, play D&D and other video games, and screech at varying pitches to summon creatures beyond the mortal ken. At Hive Frog, I dabble in mechanics, art, playtesting, narrative writing, visual design, and somehow, bird-related memes.
Tori Braley
Pronouns: She/Her
The People Wrangler
Favorite Color: Pantone 2039c
Favorite Fruit: Strawberries
Sup, I joined the team about halfway through the beta version of Gates of Adventure. Due to my knowledge of Adobe Studio and my quick integration into the group, I went from playtester and cheerleader to Associate Tentacle. I graduated from Drexel University in 2019 with a BS in Fashion Design, so I am a struggling artist trying to find my place in the world. When I’m not forcing myself to be productive, I’m in my bed watching something or spouting nonsense at my roommates. I’ve jumped around on the team, but I’ve settled into community management (Twitch, Tiktok, and Twitter, the three Ts) and collecting the team when it’s time to promote products. I don’t know how to end a “tell me about yourself” … bye.
Gabe Grajewski
Pronouns: He/Him
The Geb
Favorite Color: Verdant Green
Favorite Fruit: Honeycrisp Apple
Hi there! I'm Gabe Grajewski! I only recently joined Hive Frog Studios to see what Allison, Justin, and Rory were all screaming about. I'm a big fan of the outdoors when there isn't a pandemic raging. This is my way of still having adventures from the indoors. Speaking of the indoors, I am a PhD student studying indoor air quality! When I'm not working on research, I find a book to read, a cool stick to carve, or a friend (maybe a person, maybe a bug) to hang out with. I don't know what I do on this team; I only got here a moment ago and I'm trying my best to help everyone at Hive Frog deliver the quality content we aim to create. Am I doing this right?
Patrick Baeringer
Pronouns: He/Him
The Assistant
Favorite Color: Deep Green, like Fiddlehead Fronds
Favorite Fruit: Recently Rediscovered Love of Cherries
Wassup y’all, as you can tell by the big print, I’m Patrick. I am pushing Geb out as the most recent official member of the collective! I have been an informal assistant on the team for the past few years; playtesting previous games, the new splatbooks and a sounding board for the design team. Living full-time back in Philadelphia, you’ll most often see my face streaming at www.twitch.tv/hivefrogstudio! I spend my free time playing D&D, and trying to become cultured™ by listening to classic audiobooks and movies (Think ‘Alien’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’). Come watch me be bad at video games!
Current Collaborators
Contributors to Hive Frog Studio
Alice Poole
Pronouns: She/Her
The Layout Minion
Favorite Color: Floral White #FFFFAF0
Favorite Fruit: Hundreds of Craisins
Hi. I'm Alice. My background is in UX, UI, web, narrative, game, graphic, and book design. I joined Hive Frog to help make new books! Sometimes, I take a break from making nerdy fantasy games and books to consume nerdy fantasy games and books. Starting with The Counterspell Codex, I input, style, and lay out the content in our books - and write some of the flavor text. Books.
Former Frogs
Past Contributors to Hive Frog Studio
Allison Jasne
Pronouns: She/They
The Kerfuffle Goddess
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite Fruit: Bananas and Grapes
Allison was the first community manager of the company! She did a ton of work networking and getting exposure for our unreleased, origin story project. Editing was also a big part of Allison's role in the company, in fact, she still looks over some of our final drafts. If you're lucky you can spot her in Twitch chat sometimes!
Jillian Weida
Pronouns: She/Her
Meet n Tweet
Favorite Color: Anything Earthy
Favorite Fruit: all fruit, any fruit, will eat all the fruit
Jillian was the camera person for all things Hive Frog. She even made a mini-documentary about our unreleased, origin project! As the company evolved Jillian began producing drawings for us to use. The cover of Heroic Crafting is based on some sketches she did for the company!