There are two Free Leagues, the one that makes games I love, and the one that makes games I don’t care about in the least. There is not a whole lot of middle ground (the middle ground is Coriolis, which I love as a system and an idea but am a pass on the campaign materials). Mutant: Year Zero, Symbaroum, Twilight: 2000, The One Ring and The Walking Dead lay abandoned in the Shrug pile; Alien, Dragonbane, Vaesen, Blade Runner, Forbidden Lands and Tales from the Loop live in the Hug pile. I think there is an inner logic there, and I also think you will now have a pretty good idea about where I fall with The Electric State (2024).
Based on the narrative art book of the same name (no, there is no movie with that name, why do you ask?) and its overall action, players take the role of characters on a road trip through a strange version of 1997, in the aftermath of a war fought primarily through the use of gigantic drones and further polluted with obsession-inducing virtual reality derived from the drone piloting tech. Some of the drones look like terrifying machines of war, others look like brand mascots. Sometimes masses of people in the VR network and enter into symbiosis with drones, creating a new kind of hybrid life? It’s a lot. All the while, something similar to everyday life continues apace. There are plenty of stories to tell on the road.
A love a road trip game. One car, a bizarre landscape, stops along the way. It’s a Simon Stalenhag jam, so you know that the journey is internal as much as it’s on the asphalt. Much of that, I think, is expressed through the variable Tension mechanic that develops between the players. You can’t stay in a car together that long without nerves getting raw. The game also provides a solid methodology for designing the events that transpire at the Stops along the way. Best of all, every journey comes to an end eventually. I like an open-ended game, but one with a natural ending built in is a rare treat.
Lovely Stalenhag art throughout. I don’t believe all of it is recycled from the narrative art book. Reine Rosenberg did the additional art, which is bold where Stalenhag is fuzzy and wistful.
