I was looking forward to Things From the Flood (2019). A follow-up to Tales From the Loop, it is set in the same universe and uses essentially the same system, except it is the 90s, the hope of the previous decade has drained away leaving angst and uncertainty in its wake and, most of all, your characters can die.

In Tales From the Loop, you can play either kids or young teens. I went into this book thinking it was an expansion for older teens and college kids, with support for bringing your game into the 90s. It isn’t. This is a stand-alone game that is similar, but distinct. It it 1995. You play teens. They can die. The Luck system is gone, replaced by Scars and Friction. Thematically, all this subtly shifts the focus of the game away from dealing with external trouble and mysteries to internal, well, teen angst.

It matches the general shift in the world – still gorgeously and ambiguously rendered in the art of Simon Stalenhag. The Loop has been decommissioned. A mysterious machine cancer is spreading. There is more of an emphasis on horror. Everything is falling apart and crappy and makes you want to throw on a NIN album.

I’m not sure that I like it. I joked on the podcast that I am an angsty adult so I am not sure I want to pretend to be an angsty teen again, but in some ways that is true. The magic of Tales From the Loop is that it allows you to return to something warmly remembered but lost – childhood – whereas Things From the Flood offers a return to something most people have said good riddance to. I know that the focus on sticky interpersonal relationships would not suit my group (especially since a lot of us were teens together, ugh). I also don’t love the scenarios as much – they’re intriguing overall, but individually feel a bit like after school specials with the horror turned up. They’re too on the nose. I dunno, I think I gotta let this one sit for a while. Lemme know if you’ve had good experiences with it, though!