Simon Stålenhag’s Apocalyptic 90s RPG ‘The Electric State’ Hits Kickstarter With A Bang
The Electric State Roleplaying Game, based on the art of Simon Stålenhag’s book of the same name, is already a huge hit.
The Electric State RPG hit Kickstarter yesterday and has, at press time, nearly reached ten times its funding goal, all in less than a day. Published by Free League, whose work on another Stålenhag-art-based RPGs, Tales from the Loop, won multiple awards. If Tales from the Loop was roleplaying in an 80s that never was, The Electric State is an apocalyptic vision of the 90s in all its bleak glory.
The game has a very distinct road trip vibe. You play as people on a journey through an alternate America in a 1997 that never was. Amid the ruins of gigantic battle drones and weaponized cartoon mascots, the world seems poised on the brink of collapse (shades of failed-Capitalism abound), and now it’s time to find out what you’ll do.
The Electric State RPG – Now On Kickstarter
“A group of travelers are heading out on a journey through a strange America in an alternate 1997. The ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, heaped together with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society in decline.
A road trip on the verge of reality awaits. Go on a journey into the unknown. Free League Publishing today announced that the crowdfundig campaign for The Electric State Roleplaying Game is now live on Kickstarter.”
As you might expect, The Electric State uses the Year Zero Engine, which powers most of Free League Publishing’s games. It’s the same RPG engine in Tales from the Loop, and indeed, Nils Hintze, of Tales from the Loop is writing the game, “in collaboration with the Free League core team” per the Kickstarter page. But the Year Zero engine will likely go to some darker places in this game.
The Electric State RPG describes an America that changed following the development of “neuronic” technology in the 1960s. A year ago, in-game, a big update went out that changed everything, titled “Mode Six.” After that, society started to crumble.
Which is why your characters are on their road trip through the Electric State:
The game is not about the goal but the journey – what the characters experience and how it changes them. This is a game of exploration, but that which is explored is yourself and your friends, and what you are willing to do when the world collapses around you.
The Electric State RPG is a game of exploration and relations, conflict between groups and individuals, and what you are willing to do when you are stuck halfway to your goal and bad turns to worse. It’s a road movie through a land that is slowly falling apart.
So what do you get from the Kickstarter? The goal is to create the eponymous standalone core rulebook, The Electric State RPG, with options for a special collector’s edition as an exclusive Kickstarter reward. Of course, now that stretch goals have been smashed through, the book is getting bigger, and folks have unlocked new game content, as well as an accompanying Digital Art Book and VTT content module for Alchemy.
Back The Electric State on Kickstarter!
See you on the road through The Electric State.
