Kickstarter Countdown: 5 days…. Of Art and Ambience.

Although rules and mechanics underpin and guide how a game is played, and adventure design and writing establish the story arc and key components of the particular adventure on which the heroes embark, the aesthetics of the game–the elegance of the rules, the clarity and beauty of the writing, the impressiveness and appropriateness of the art, the rightness and detail of the maps, the tenor of the soundscape—go a long way toward creating the sense of vivid immersion that folks love when playing RPGs.  

And yeah, you can have a great game with a great GM, an adventure outline with some notes, a schematic map scratched on a notepad, and players who, together, can enter into the world that the GM brings to life. But you can’t publish that. When people lay down good money for a game, they expect the aesthetics to evoke and enhance their enjoyment of it, both as an experience and as a product in and of itself. 

That’s why we are thrilled to have outstanding artists on board for the Return of the Living Dead Cinematic Sourcebook. 

First, we have Christopher P. Tyner of Dreamslayer Studios, creating the art. You may have seen Dreamslayer’s liveplay of the preview Return of the Living Dead adventure,Typical Army Fuck-Up, which you can download for free from the kickstarter site and try for yourself. I will be doing an interview with Christopher after the launch, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, scroll down through his gallery and you will get a sense of the range and quality of his work and why we’re thrilled to have him on board. 

Second, we are ecstatic to have a variant cover for the book and a limited-edition, signed-and-numbered poster of the variant for the kickstarter created by the master of horror-film posters and covers, Graham Humphreys. Graham’s work is instantly recognizable and has been enormously influential on the horror genre. And his previous work on Return of the Living Dead has become iconic. You can see two previous Return of the Living Dead posters (one for the RIO Cinema and another for VHS) here and here, but do check out his gallery–it is amazing! 

Third, what truly cinematic adventure would be complete without a great soundscape and sound effects? Soundscapes add background layers of tension, suspense, and resolution, and create emotional cues for scenes. And sound effects can come in right handy for heightening realism, creating shock or surprise, or crystallizing an image in the imagination. And doesn’t it seem like both those things could be mighty useful in a Return of the Living Dead adventures? You bet it does. So we are super-excited to have partnered once more with Syrinscape. Syrinscape’s kick-ass, punk-rock fueled (we are in the 80’s) audioscape and grisly sound effects are perfect accompaniment to the frenetic chaos of a zombie outbreak. Get it as part of a tier or an add-on.