Tag Archives: simon stalenhag

From Netflix to Tabletop: The Electric State RPG Invites Players Into a Stunning, Somber Alternate Reality from the Mind of Simon Stålenhag

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The Electric State RPG

The Electric State is here.

This week, Netflix released the major motion picture adaptation of The Electric State, bringing Simon Stålenhag’s gripping narrative art book of the same name to a global streaming audience. The movie, starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, tells the story of an unlikely team adventuring across a world on the brink of collapse. 

If that brief glimpse of Stålenhag’s vision of an alternative near-apocalyptic 1990s left you wanting to dive deeper into this dark and strange world, then keep the adventure going with The Electric State RPG by Free League Publishing. The Electric State RPG — which released in October 2024 and remains available in the Free League webshop, hobby stores, and digitally on DriveThruRPG — asks players to explore themselves, their friends, and what they are willing to do when the world collapses around them. 

The Electric State Roleplaying Game includes lavish art by Simon Stålenhag and pieces created for The Electric State art book project but never published before.

Written by Nils Hintze in collaboration with the Free League core team, the rules of the game are based on the acclaimed Year Zero Engine, used in award-winning games such as the ALIEN RPG, the Blade Runner RPG, the Tales From the Loop RPG, and The Walking Dead Universe RPG, but uniquely tailored for this new game. The Electric State RPG is a standalone book that contains all the tools you need to play and create short to mid-length campaigns in a society on the brink of apocalypse.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the story: Following the discovery of neuronics in the late 1960s, technology diverged from our world. It is now 1997, and the world is on the verge of apocalypse. The ever-present Sentre corporation pushes neuronic technology to the population via cheap headsets. Civilization crumbles as something strange spreads through the neuronic net. People fail to turn up for work, basic services cease to function, and the government is rapidly losing control.

Players will embark on a journey of exploration and relations, conflict between groups and individuals found on the road, and they will discover what they are willing to do when they’re stuck halfway to their goal and bad turns to worse. 

Image and Skybound will Publish The Labyrinth by Simon Stålenhag

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Simon Stålenhag’s upcoming, highly anticipated narrative art book, The Labyrinth, will be published this November by Image Comics and Skybound. The Labyrinth is Stålenhag’s fourth title.

The Labyrinth transports readers to a world covered by ruins and ash, the remnants of an otherworldly phenomenon that has ravaged the earth’s atmosphere and forced its few survivors deep underground. Matt, Sigrid, and Charlie leave the safe harbor of the enclave for an expedition into the wastelands of the surface world. During their journey they are forced to confront dark secrets from the time before civilization’s fall. The Kickstarter campaign doubled the project’s original goal.

The Labyrinth (ISBN: 978-1-5343-2069-7) will be available in hardcover for purchase at local comic book shops on Wednesday, November 3 and at independent bookstores or via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Indigo on Tuesday, November 9.

The Labyrinth

Simon Stålenhag Delivers a Unique Vision of a Dystopic Future with The Labyrinth

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Simon Stålenhag is running a Kickstarter for The Labyrinth, a brand-new narrative art book. Past works of Stålenhag’s has been adapted into roleplaying games and for television.

The Labyrinth introduces us to a world covered by ruins and ash, the few survivors that remain take shelter deep underground. But the time has come to venture out into the wastelands of the surface world. Are you prepared to confront dark secrets from the time before civilization’s fall?

The Labyrinth will be a thick, oversized artbook of over 150 pages. There are two versions, a standard, and a limited edition. The limited edition features an exclusive and beautifully embossed cloth cover, is unique to this Kickstarter, and will never be printed again.

The standard edition starts at about $40 US plus shipping with the limited edition at $80 plus shipping.

The project runs until October 30 and has already passed its goal.

The Labyrinth

Free League Launches Kickstarter for Tales From the Loop – The Board Game

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The Kickstarter for Tales From the Loop – The Board Game was launched today by Free League Publishing. The game, based on the universe created by artist and author Simon Stålenhag was recently adapted to a tv series on Amazon Prime Video, offers cooperative gameplay using robot miniatures by Paolo Parente’s Dust Studio. A complete Print ‘n Play kit can be downloaded for free from the Kickstarter.

Simon Stålenhag is the internationally lauded artist and author of Tales From the Loop and Things From the Flood, narrative art books published by Free League that stunned the world with a vision of an alternate Scandinavia in the 1980s and ‘90s, where technology invaded tranquil landscapes to form an entirely new universe of the eerie and the nostalgic.

In 2017, Free League published a tabletop roleplaying game based on Tales From the Loop, which went on to win five Gold ENnie Awards, including Best Game and Product of the Year. A tv series adaptation of Tales From the Loop launched just a few days ago on Amazon Prime Video.

Tales From the Loop – The Board Game lets players take another step into the amazing world of the Loop. In the 1-5 players take the roles of teenagers who investigate the mysteries originating from the Loop, a huge underground science facility with strange effects on the suburban landscapes around it – but they also need to make sure they’re home in time for dinner!

Tales From the Loop – The Boardgame is designed by Martin Takaichi and includes high-quality miniatures by Paolo Parente‘s Dust Studio.

To let players try out Tales From the Loop – The Board Game for themselves, Free League provides a Print ‘n Play kit of the current Alpha game prototype for download from the Kickstarter page. The Print ‘n Play kit includes four characters and one scenario to play.

You can find the Kickstarter here.

Tales From the Loop – The Boardgame