My friends, talk about bringing back some memories! Twilight: 2000 was one of my earliest and best loved RPGs. I’d started with looted in D&D, piloted Scout/Couriers in Traveller, and played a few others, but let me tell you, Twilight: 2000 hit home. If you didn’t grow up in that time, it is hard to describe how nihilistic the future looked. The Soviet Union was a going concern. They had a stranglehold on Eastern Europe, occupied Afghanistan, and supported proxies the world over. Meanwhile, I lived near a number of tertiary nuclear targets, as well as downwind of Chicago, if the balloon ever went up, I wasn’t living to see it.
So, how could I love Twilight: 2000? Catharsis, it was catharsis. Here was a game where we were playing just people, caught up in a terrible situation beyond their control, and making something better from it. As the years went by and Twilight: 2000 became a future that never was, I kept coming back to it. There was a wide open sandbox and the freedom to explore it, you could do anything; gritty survival anywhere in the world, spy games in Krakow, nation and community building, wandering “ronin”, and even weirder adventures ala Twilight Nightmares. There were a lot of great games played and many good friends made.
So, when I heard that Fria Lagan had created a kickstarter for a new edition of Twilight: 2000, I knew I’d be sharing this. Fria Lagan is the award winning publisher of such games as Mutant: Year Zero, Tales from the Loop, Alien, and Coriolis among others. This year they took 5 Golds and a Silver at the 2020 Ennies. They are a company know for sleek game design, modern production values, and a proven track record among RPG fans for excellent work. At the time of this writing, they have received pledges of $250,000 towards a $11,500 goal and are shattering their stretch goals.
Here’s some quotes from the kickstarter;
“The first edition of Twilight: 2000 was an iconic game for me back in the ’80s, and we are humbled and honored to work with Marc Miller and Game Designers’ Workshop to bring a new edition to life. The original game was really ahead of its time. Our goal is to build on the amazing sandbox survival gameplay and develop it further, making it more accessible using the tools of modern game design,” says lead game designer Tomas Härenstam.
“When I saw this proposal to revisit the Twilight universe, I signed on immediately. As I have seen the work proceed, I have not been disappointed, and I look forward to seeing this project become reality,” says Marc Miller of Far Future Enterprises and co-founder of Game Designers’ Workshop.
As well as some of the product shots and fantastic art;
Now is your turn, support a worthy successor to the original GDW brand, and get some retro-future on. Everything you’ll need, and more, is in the boxed set. “You’re on your own now.”
