Meet Astral’s Founder and Lead Developer, Tom!

Tom is the fearless leader of our Astral team! He is the Chief Visionary, Chief Developer, and Chief, well, Everything here at Unicorn Heart Club. Tom recently answered some questions about tabletop gaming, his passions, and why he started Astral TableTop.

Tell us a little about yourself, Tom.

Sure! I’m Tom and I’ve been developing since I was 13. I’m originally from Long Island but now live in New Jersey with my fiancée and our two dogs. Ever since I was little, I always wanted to make video games but I somehow I got stuck developing software for huge corporate backends instead. I had a chance in 2017 to quit work and start Power VTT — which is now Astral TableTop — and I have been loving it ever since! In between developing and playing video games, I make time to hike, go running, and even have a little personal music project I’m working on.

At what age did you become interested in tabletop gaming?

This might come as a surprise but it was recent — in 2016 I found (and fell in love with) tabletop gaming. I wish I had known about it when I was younger, I have just started to scratch the surface of all that is out there and I’m eager to continue the adventures!

What was first game to get you hooked? What was special about it?

My first game ever.

A close friend of mine had been wanting to GM the new D&D 5e campaign that came out at the time and rallied up a group of beginner tabletop players, myself included. My friend was amazing, he helped us build our characters from start to finish and gave us complete control, too much control. I ended up with a 10ft green dragonborn who was way too powerful for my own good.

I think every new tabletop gamer has that, “I get it!” moment. I remember exploring the goblin cave when I went to light my torch (to see better, obviously) and our GM bursts out, “You light your torch and stand out like a sore, 10 ft.-tall, scaly green thumb.” I was a lot more cautious from that point on.

You coded the whole Astral platform yourself, right? Had you coded other projects before?

Yup! Power VTT’s initial development, from marketplace to landing pages to weather, was all me. Now I have an awesome team who help me with much of this, although I am still behind most of the development.

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