2012: Godswake

...It is the year 2012, and the world is indeed coming to an end. It’s been almost half a year now, and while many try to continue their normal way of living, others began to center their lives around these events, apostolating religious theories about the end of the world, or using the chaos to their own advantages. It is pretty obvious to everyone that there won’t be long before something big happens, although what that will be, or what the meaning of all this is, noone knows.

Godswake is an Adventure game set is the near future (or if you read this after 2012, an alternate Earth) when apparently the world is falling apart, but in a very unexpected, mythic, supernatural way. The characters – represented by the players – race against each other to get their hands on an allegedly extremely powerful relic amidst the chaos, with what they may not only be able stop the destruction, but also to assume a god-like power for themselves. However, it is a very hard task: the dangers lie not only in the natural catastrophes caused by the troubled matter of the Earth, but also in the insanity of people trying to deal with the coming of the apocalypse, in the rivalry of others who have the same goal in mind and in the appearance of supernatural events and creatures that have only lived in people’s imagination before. During their adventures the characters will probably travel around the world, visit exotic places, lead expeditions into relentless wildernesses in search for helpful minor Artifacts, face surprising Adventures and venture into disaster-ridden places all other people are running away from.

Card traits and game mechanics (such as Character Personalities that affect the outcome of adventures they have) all strive to keep the game as thematic as possible, while being simple and straight-forward at the same time. The game tries to keep a short playing time for an adventure game, while still being epic and memorable.

The game has been influenced by many sources ranging from Indiana Jones (regarding exploration in exotic places) and James Bond movies (high tech gear, daring action scenes), through the Supernatural tv-series (with the “ongoing apocalypse” setting), Hellblazer comics (giving it the darker tone, people with mystical powers, occult and magic), to the Stalker concept by the Strugatsky-brothers (regarding the whole weird zone called the Unknown, where the rumored relic lies). The mood of the game may feel like a mix of all of the above: quite dark and mature, but without resorting to graphic violence or vulgarity; a bit thought-provoking, but not taking itself too seriously.

The game uses lots of cards – around 350 in all – and many tokens as components, aside from a game board.