Pyramid Review
a|state RPG
Published by Contested Ground Studios
Written by Malcolm Craig
Illustrated by Paul Bourne
256-page b&w hardcover; $40.00
a|state is a new RPG that joins the growing number of games set within a single city. These include SLA Industries, Nexus the Infinite City, Freeport: City of Adventure, Judge Dredd, and Kult. Indeed a|state's nearest antecedent is SLA Industries, but unlike that RPG it is not a product of its time. Where SLA Industries drew on the authors' life in Glasgow under the Conservative Government of the late 1980s for its atmosphere, a|state's ambience is one of soil and sweat, soot and survival. While its influences are clear -- the films Blade Runner and Dark City, and the novel Perdido Street Station, a|state is primarily Dickensian and industrial in its feel. Its genre is that of steampunk bereft of the constrictions of Victorian society.
"The City" is without a name. It stands surrounded by the acid deserts and desiccated forests of the Outlands. Something prevents travel in the Outlands, though robots are sent out to scavenge. The City might once have had a name, but this and a swathe of information were lost in an event roughly a millennium ago: the Shift. This cut The City off from what was before and left behind the Shifted, strange entities that defy explanation, even after centuries of study. Physically, The City is a series of concentric circles formed by canals that are its main thoroughfares, these traversed by lumbering railways that . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 31, 2004
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