THROWN FOR A LOOP
Tales from the Loop mixes nostalgia for ‘80s adventure films with sci-fi mysteries to create a truly unique RPG setting. Project manager Tomas Härenstam discusses how players can combine heroism with homework
Words by Richard Jansen-Parkes
The sun drifts towards the horizon as a group of teenagers tromp through kneehigh grass towards a copse of trees. The leader, an older girl in expensive clothes, drags the rest along as they follow a path long forgotten by the town’s adults.
She points at something through the branches and a rake-thin, mop-haired boy rushes forward with a camera in one hand and a notebook in the other, while behind him a burly teen in a football shirt grips his baseball bat a little bit harder.
There, in a clearing, is a blue-white glow floating in the air – a rip in time and space. As the others crowd round and chatter excitedly, a pale girl in ripped jeans and a black t-shirt examines the ground, noticing the tracks the others missed. The tracks with claws.
In the shadows cast by the trees, something watches them with cold, reptilian eyes…
This is the world of Tales from the Loop, a tabletop RPG from Swedish games studio Free League that combines mysteries, sci-fi and school in order to evoke the feel of kids’ adventure movies from the 1980s.
If nothing else, it’s a prime example of the fact that sometimes you don’t know how much you want something until you hear about it, at which point it seems like the most obvious idea in the world.
“Tales from the Loop is a game of the ‘80s that never really was,” explains Tomas Härenstam, the game’s project manager. “The ‘80s that is perhaps the way you wished it were if you grew up in that time.
“It’s the imaginings of a child – of robots and dinosaurs and fantastic things making their way into your everyday life. Well, that’s the basic premise, anyway.”
The spark of inspiration for the game came from a series of paintings by Simon Stålenhag, set around an imaginary town next to a powerful and mysterious particle accelerator known as ‘The Loop’.
Tales from the Loop has a feel that many gamers will find reminiscent of Jamey Stegmaier’s 1920s-with-mechs strategy game Scythe – itself based on an artist’s vision of an alternate past. The work mixes sci-fi trappings with nostalgia for suburban childhood, battered old Volvos and summer holidays spent aimlessly wandering the countryside. It instantly proved a hit on Kickstarter, spawning two artbooks published by Free League.
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