Pyramid Review
Cold City: A Game of Hidden Agendas, Trust, And Monster Hunting
Published by Contested Ground Studios
Designed & Written by Malcolm Craig with Steve Dempsey
Cover by Paul Bourne
Illustrated by Stuart Beel
128-page b&w digest-sized softcover; $23
Although Cold City: A Game of Hidden Agendas, Trust, And Monster Hunting -- like the publisher's better known a|state -- is another city-based RPG, it is a much smaller, less commercial affair. Indeed, it could be seen as a bridge between the mainstream commercial type of RPG and the independent self-published title that explores and pushes at the RPG format's boundaries. For while the theme is purely commercial, the mechanics do owe something to the indie game, but not too much, and it is written with less of an author's voice than in many indie titles.
The theme is simple: Agents from the four occupying powers hunt monsters in an Underground War in post-war Berlin. Can once-great allies learn to look beyond the national stereotype and learn to trust their colleagues? The indie-style mechanics show in the handling of this "trust" element, and in the slight degree of narrative control that the players can gain during play.
The year is 1950 and with the Cold War hardly settled in, the former allies in war must work together again. Abominations born of Nazi science and experimentation, and things not born of this Earth, but of occult research, still haunt, lurk, and stalk the ruins, streets, and tunnels of a Berlin being rebuilt following . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 31, 2007
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