eerieindiana | Entries tagged with non-canon: tales from the loop

Our #DnD group is taking a brief break from 5e to try out some short-run campaigns and one-shots, and man, I am absolutely loving Tales From The Loop. It's like Eerie, Indiana! But sad!
— Al Kennedy (@housetoastonish) August 15, 2020

froodle

Louis: Sadly, I disliked every episode after the first (sorry!) For me it was a loose collection of unrelated knock-off Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Black Mirror/Eerie Indiana fan-fiction stories with an unwelcome edge of erotic teen angst. Each episode was fairly interesting at first, but not a single one of them went anywhere but exactly where it seemed like it would from the start. Each episode, for me, was a missed opportunity to make something really outstanding and original. They assembled a great cast, great locations, excellent effects and directing, developed a potentially compelling concept in Episode 1, and then used all that on what I felt were terribly mediocre (at best) stories.

froodle

From what I know if it “Tales from The Loop” is inspired by “Stranger Things”, “Eerie, Indiana” and “Tales from The Loop” TV show. (And the original Swedish artwork)
— Carl (@Heimdayl) July 17, 2020

froodle

Watching Tales from the Loop on Prime Video and it’s reminded me of a show I watched growing up I forgot all about. Eerie, Indiana - https://t.co/jwcLranU1x
— David Rhys White (@davidrhyswhite) June 27, 2020

froodle

Dystopia with hot chocolate – interview with Tales from the Loop author/artist Simon Stålenhag. The new series is beautiful (think Terrence Malick’s Eerie, Indiana) and the original book is well worth sinking your eyes into.

froodle

Did you do Tales From the Loop yet? I started it thinking it would be great but didn't get far
— Pete (@headofMoncur) May 3, 2020

First couple episodes yeh. Feels like halfway between Black Mirror and Eerie Indiana to me. I’ll finish it.
— Jay 🖖 (@jaybn1) May 3, 2020

froodle

Tales From the Loop so far is a lot more like Eerie, Indiana than Stranger Things and Eerie, Indiana is one of my all-time favorites so this is extremely my jam.
— Dave Chalker (@DaveTheGame) April 26, 2020

froodle

I'm watching...

Tales from the Loop, Amazon Prime. If you can imagine a mash-up of Stranger Things, Black Mirror and Eerie, Indiana filmed in Scandi-noir style (really), you have Amazon’s new sci-fi series, starring Jonathan Pryce and Rebecca Hall. It’s odd, yes; but completely absorbing.

froodle

Tales from the loop is basically eerie Indiana.
— AP (@__AP____) April 9, 2020

froodle

(++ WARNING: This review contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Tales from the Loop ++)

( Read more... )

What’s more, for such a small town there’s already a great deal of big secrets out there. Eerie Indiana without the gags and minus the B movie call backs too.

( Read more... )

froodle

pic.twitter.com/bh9NRU8Fg4
— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) April 9, 2020

I haven't thought about Eerie Indiana in years… God, that was a great show. Thanks!
— Dave Morris (@Daveybot) April 9, 2020

froodle

pic.twitter.com/bh9NRU8Fg4
— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) April 9, 2020

froodle

Based upon the iconic artwork of Simon Stålenhag, Amazon Prime Video's Tales From The Loop both lived up to my expectations and subverted them.

Set in an "'80s that never was", complete with clunky robots and weird science, it blends the idealised bucolic nature of small town life with the bizarre to create a genteel series of mysteries, a cocktail of old school Twilight Zone stories and more modern Black Mirror themes with the community spirit of Eerie, Indiana, and, yes, a modicum of Stranger Things.

People die and disappear, there's time and dimensional travel, but there is no real overarching plot, no monsters to slay, no Big Bad to thwart.

The show is more concerned with exploring the lives of people who live and work around The Loop, a subterranean research centre that is unlocking the secrets of the universe, making "the impossible, possible".

Rather than following a single - branching - plotline, this first season is more akin to ripples spreading out from an incident that occurs in the second episode ... and has an unexpected, heartbreaking, pay-off in the season finale.

While largely concerned with the family of Loretta (Rebecca Hall) and George (Paul Schneider), Tales From The Loop is eight, hour-long, stories where incidental, background, characters in one story often become the protagonist in another.

Although each story is largely self-contained, they are not standalone and certainly unfold in a set order, fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Don't expect dramatic, pulpy action, instead this is thoughtful, methodical, and measured storytelling that demands your focus and concentration, and can grab you in the feels when you're least expecting it, thanks to its slowly blossoming narrative and the existential questions it poses.

Those familiar with the Tales From The Loop roleplaying game - from Free League - might come to this expecting a stronger Stranger Things vibe, with plucky youngsters solving cases under the noses of dismissive adults, but that's not the case here.

For instance, while Loretta and George's son Cole (Duncan Joiner) has an instrumental role in many of the stories, the balance of adult leads to child leads is about even.

Tales From The Loop stays away from many of the tropes associated with the 'kids of bikes' genre and Stranger Things (not that I'm bashing that show - I've never tried to hide my love for it - I just want to stress how different the two are, even though, at first glance, you might think they would be covering similar ground).

The cinematography and mise-en-scene of Tales From The Loop is simply phenomenal, possibly the best I've seen in this kind of television series, with many shots looking like they were photocopied straight from the pages of a Simon Stålenhag artbook.

Complementing this is the ethereal score by Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan, that accentuates the dreamlike quality of the stories, where not everything is explained, yet you accept it anyway because the characters do.

froodle

I actually finished it...this show should come with a disclaimer. I understand all the cinematic hype around this show but as a whole it was just blah! Kinda reminded me of a depressing moody version Of Eerie Indiana.
— Sambakja mp3 (@ibpleeka) April 7, 2020

froodle

Anyone who has spent the last two decades yearning for Eerie Indiana will find a lot of joy in Tales from The Loop. About half way in and thoroughly enjoying myself. #talesfromtheloop
— Nathaniel Marten (@howesmarten) April 5, 2020

I thought the same with the eerie indiana comparison
— Paul4AllSeasons (@paul4allseasons) April 6, 2020

froodle

A distinctly retrofuturist vibe. A small American town with a dark secret. A hidden laboratory where unspeakable experiments are performed. If you think it sounds familiar, you’re certainly not alone. In fact you’d be forgiven for thinking that Tales from the Loop, the latest offering from Amazon Prime Video, was nothing more than a shrewd attempt to replicate the success of Stranger Things.

Scratch below the surface though and you’ll find a show remarkably different to Netflix‘s smash hit. In contrast to Stranger Things‘ ’80s action stylings, Tales from the Loop is a calm and quiet anthology series more interested in small moments than bombastic set pieces.

Based on Simon Stålenhag’s art book and tabletop role-playing game of the same name, the series is set in an alternate-history version of 1970s USA. Here, the gaudy neon pinks and blues of shows like Stranger Things are replaced with a distinctly mustard-coloured pallette and vinyl wood-effect paneling everywhere you look.

Aside from this, the world of Tales from the Loop is full of familiar science-fiction iconography, from rusting mechanical arms to giant glowing pylons. Where Tales‘ style differs from a lot of ’80s-inspired fiction is how it places these weird and strange items in the middle of everyday life.

Characters in the show are not shocked to stumble on a robot in the woods, or snow falling upwards in a cabin. This blend of the extraordinary and the mundane is what made Stålenhag’s original vision so compelling and it’s great to see it translated so well to the screen.

A big part of what makes the show work is its anthology format. The series spends each of its eight episodes focused on different members of a small Ohio community who all live in the shadow of (or work for) an ominous experimental facility named The Loop.

This anthology setup means the show can jump around and introduce us to a host of characters, many of which recur in minor roles during episodes where they’re not centre stage.

Switching focus like this, and keeping familiar faces in the audience’s peripheral vision, turns Tales from the Loop from a procedural sci-fi show into something even more interesting. It becomes a multi-generational story with a town, and the ever-present Loop, at its core.

The show’s first episode sets the tempo when its enigmatic narrator, played wonderfully by Jonathan Pryce, declares “everyone in town is connected to the loop in one way or another. You’ll hear all their stories, in time.”

Its focus is broader than a single story or character arc and is much more about how the presence of The Loop impacts different people from different walks of life.

For instance, episode six dives into the personal life of a queer security guard, glimpsed in earlier episodes, whose obsession and lust send him spiralling into a surreal situation involving infidelity and parallel universes.

This episode is a prime example of the show using its science-fiction setting to explore broader, more relatable themes. Here, Tales from the Loop tells a story that is sure to resonate with many LGBTQ+ people, one about desiring to escape a small town and finding domestic and romantic fulfilment.

Beyond its structure, Tales‘ quiet and thoughtful tone also separates it from other shows and films you might have watched. In ’80s pop culture terms, if Stranger Things is ET and Gremlins, ie funny and low-stakes, Tales is Blade Runner – quiet and philosophical.

That also means, fundamentally, that the show is slow moving. Its cinematography, dialogue and episode pacing all take their time to get to the point. That might be too sluggish for some, but overall the effect is oddly peaceful.

Rather than over-explain concepts or lean on quippy comedy, Tales uses its musical and visual storytelling to do the heavy lifting – it’s interested in saying a lot with a little. Over the course of the series, it wants to talk about what happens to a company town when work dries up, or when there is a major accident at a factory. It wants to talk about what being in a family means, and what it means to say goodbye to an elderly relative.

In its second episode, arguably the show’s least action-packed, Jonathan Pryce’s character is moved to the foreground and we explore his relationship with his grandson. A particularly poignant scene sees the pair shout into an strange echo chamber, where the duration of the echoes indicate how long you have left to live. This scene, and episode, are not plot-heavy but they are emotionally rich and indicative of the kind of show Tales from the Loop wants to be.

It asks you to sit and soak it in. Don’t look at your phone, don’t think about the outside world for a minute. Like working on a puzzle or staring at a painting, Tales from the Loop is a dense experience you can get lost in.

If you ask us, that’s what we all need right now.

froodle

Anyone who has spent the last two decades yearning for Eerie Indiana will find a lot of joy in Tales from The Loop. About half way in and thoroughly enjoying myself. #talesfromtheloop
— Nathaniel Marten (@howesmarten) April 5, 2020

froodle

Very much enjoying Tales From the Loop (not my journey between the bedroom and living room). Eerie Indiana directed by Norman Rockwell
— Drew Beckett (@Drewjbeckett) April 4, 2020

froodle

Amazon Prime's latest - Tales From The Loop - is an ungodly mash-up between Twin Peaks, Eerie, Indiana and Black Mirror. The result is like nothing else on TV and the only show that manages to calm and unsettle you at the same time

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froodle

Two episodes in and Tales from the Loop is very good. It feels less like Stranger Things and more like a kind of mumblecore Eerie Indiana. It’s downbeat, strange and beautifully shot.
— Charlie Etheridge-Nunn (@charlie_en) April 3, 2020

froodle

Watch it here.

froodle

In an age where digital entertainment reigns supreme, it’s quite surprising how much traction tabletop role-playing games are gaining. While there’s always something new to amuse ourselves to death with on our smartphones, consoles and PCs, there’s been a surge of interest in games that involve paper, pencils, dice, cards, and people.

For the most part, that interest tends towards Dungeons & Dragons, the world’s oldest, most successful and popular role-playing game and driven by the success of actual play shows like Critical Role and Acquisitions, Incorporated. But the truth is that there’s more to tabletop role-playing than serpents that breath fire and subterranean labyrinths.

Break out a notebook and get thee to a gaming store for I’m about to share great tabletop role-playing games featuring diverse settings, interesting character options and a myriad of compelling game mechanics. If you’ve always wanted to sit down and play make-believe with the rest of your friends, here are eight other possibilities you might not have considered.

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Tales from The Loop by Nils Hintze and Free League Publishing

If you like: Stranger Things, Eerie, Indiana, The X-Files

Inspired by the art of Simon Stalenhag, Tales from the Loop is set in an alternate 1980s where the suburbs are the new home for mysterious research projects. Players are the small-town kids watching their neighborhood change in the face of super science.

Straight out of the book, Tales from the Loop takes place in either the Mälaren Islands of Sweden or in the desert sprawl of Boulder City, Nevada, though options exist to hack its premise into your hometown. Using easy to understand rules, you’ll go on adventures discovering what the adults cannot or will not see in their own town.

( Read more... )

froodle

Hi fellow loopers! I thought I would share this scenario generator that I’ve been working on. It’s full of aspects pulled from various sources (Gravity Falls; Eerie, Indiana; The X-Files; The Twilight Zone; etc.) and is designed to help you come up with stories (either planned or on the fly). Roll 2d6 on each of the five main tables, using one number for the row and the other for the column, writing down the results for each. If you roll a result in all-caps, consult the appropriate table to fill in that blank. Once you have the five aspects, try to create a story with at least three of those elements.

Example:

Antagonist: Drifter (6-3)
Power: Paralysis (3-4)
Device: APPLIANCE (3,1) > Fridge (2)
Goal: Fame (5-2)
Intro: Hiding
The PCs find a car that’s crashed into a tree. The driver is nearby, hiding in a bush. He says that he’s hiding from a hitchhiker he picked up who did something to paralyze him (hence the crash). The hitchhiker told the driver his name and that he should spread the word about him.

I hope you find this helpful (or at least amusing). I’ve used it to create a scenario that I’ve just started running and it’s been going well so far! Let me know if you have any comments or questions!

froodle

#rpgaday2019 Day 13
*Mystery* is a great part of RPG. I've yet to meet a group that plays without any plot. I recently bought a game that solely revolves around *Mysteries* - "Tales from the Loop" - it's "Goones", "Stranger Things", "Eerie Indiana" and "Goosebumps" combined.
— Medwith (@Medwith) August 13, 2019

froodle

A mystery adventure in a technologically altered 80's setting. Think 'Eerie, Indiana' (albeit early 90s), 'Stranger Things', 'The Goonies', maybe even a tiny dash of 'E.T' and 'Scooby Doo'.

You'll be playing as a group of kids investigating odd things around your hometown, Boulder City, Nevada; coincidentally also home to the Loop, a huge underground particle accelerator.

Prior experience of the game will not be expected at all, but I will post some details about the setting on this event page, which you should familiarise yourself with beforehand.

It is a simple system to learn. Gameplay will be fully explained on the day.

You can also pop into Dice and a Slice and check out the Tales from the Loop core book in their library if you want to get a feel for things.

froodle

Once my housing situation is cleared up, I need to get back to face to face gaming. I have Ryuutama on the shelf, haven't played it yet, and I've been reading Tales From the Loop which seems like something I could really get into as well.
— NewbieDM (@newbiedm) June 24, 2019

I think you'd like Tales From the Loop. I think you could do a reasonable Back to the Future-inspired game from it too.
— Dave Chalker (@DaveTheGame) June 24, 2019

Oh yes, for sure. I've given it some thought. A game based on that German show Dark would be cool.
— NewbieDM (@newbiedm) June 24, 2019

I don't think I know that one.
— Dave Chalker (@DaveTheGame) June 24, 2019

Let me know what you think. Some people called it the german Stranger Things. I'm not sure I agree, but I can see why they did.
— NewbieDM (@newbiedm) June 24, 2019

I eat that stuff up. Eerie, Indiana is one of my all-time favorites.
— Dave Chalker (@DaveTheGame) June 24, 2019

froodle

The best source of inspiration for mysteries for Tales From The Loop #ttrpg is not Stranger Thins or the Goonies but « Eerie, Indiana » 😍 pic.twitter.com/0sqYyveOHH
— The King In Yolo (@greuh) June 15, 2019

froodle

'Things From The Flood' it is wonderfully frightening and strangely human, robots and monsters habitable in the Swedish suburbs by @simonstalenhag pic.twitter.com/QvL6cIMNR5
— Fabiano-p. (@fsparise) December 2, 2018

froodle

Imagine a setting in the 1980s and machines roam the landscape all connected to a mysterious facility and an equally mysterious power source used to generate various odd experiments that occasionally run rampant in your suburban life. The caveat? You’re all playing as kids, and only you can stop the machine menace. Free League Publishing released their ENnie awarding Tales from the Loop in 2015 which would later become of the “must play games” of 2017, and the game continues to grow with their first campaign book, Tales from the Loop: Our Friends the Machines and Other Mysteries.

You can acquire your copy of Our Friends the Machines and Other Mysteries here and currently, at the time of this article, the book is sold out, but there are plenty of 3rd-party distributors that should have copies available. Additionally, Free League Publishing launched a Kickstarter, Things from the Flood, that is meant as a sequel to Tales from the Loop. If you haven’t picked up your copy of Tales from the Loop, the game is essentially the Goonies meets Eerie Indiana, and it just works with all of these different niche genres.

froodle

There was a made for TV film (possibly a series) I saw a decade or so ago (possibly longer). Very "Edge of Darkness" style techno thriller, that ends with an artificial black hole, originally created for clean energy, now taking more and more energy to contain it and the Government desperately trying to cover it up.

I remember one scene where a guy falls against the containment vessel, held there by the black hole's gravity, and is cooked by the microwave radiation being emitted.

I can't remember what it was called! Can't find a mention if it on the net either, I just remember a few fragmentary memories. It's really annoying me.

This is all because I am very much considering getting "Tales From the Loop", the 80's set RPG with old wierd technology in a nearly moribund scientific facility causing all sorts of "Eerie Indiana", "Stranger Days", "Town Called Eureka", "Warehouse 13" oddness to happen to the communities that live near it. It's all based on the beautiful retro futuristic art book by Simon Stálenhag, set in Sweden but with a secondary setting in Nevada. A new supplement, "Tales From the Loop- Our Friends the Machines & Other Mysteries" has a new setting where the Loop is actually under the Norfolk Broads in the UK, so that's a nod to all the UK players.

But I had already been imagining a setting called "Tales From the Line", a earlier prototype Linear Particle Accelerator (a LINAC) called "The Line", 15 miles long and based in deep tunnels in South Wales (where I grew up), superceeded by the Loop in Sweden but then given a new lease of life with two devices created in Sweden and shipped over that allowed it to wrap the particles around the ends of the accelerator and send them straight back down the second "barrel". These "Graviton Reflectors" would of course be microscopic black holes and, now, in the 80s, the facility is concerned almost entirely with keeping them under control and reducing the strange effects they have on the surrounding landscape.

I took my inspiration from the aforementioned TV show, but I can't find out what it was!

Highly frustrating.

Any ideas?

PS- Got it, it was the 1999 "Doomwatch - Winter Angel" (a pilot for a remake of the old 1970s "Doomwatch" TV series, although this was the only one made).

froodle

Return to Simon Stålenhag's world of the Loop in this new RPG. It's the '90s now, and things are different. This time, you can die.

froodle

Eerie Indiana: Some good research material if you’re making your own campaign...

froodle

Hace algunos meses reseñábamos con entusiasmo al juego de rol que arrasó con los Ennie Awards 2017, pero es que Tales from the Loop merece todo ese entusiasmo, hemos narrado las aventuras oficiales de Our Friends the Machines y el resultado no decepciona, pero debemos tener en cuenta un par de cosas al momento de decidir jugarlo, por eso decidimos hacer este nuevo artículo.

En efecto, cuando escribí sobre Tales from the Loop no pude ocultar cuanto me había gustado, puesto que como niño de los ochenta es genial ver un juego de rol dirigido especialmente a vivir aventuras en el mundo que conocimos y similares a las que nos acostumbramos a ver en TV y películas rentadas para VHS.

De pronto podríamos vivir la historia de It, o rescatar nuestro perro de un científico loco que quiere experimentar con él, como los chicos de la película sabatina de Disney Little Spies (sí, la del niño con el helicóptero a control remoto), e incluso algo como la película Small Soldiers, y eso es sencillamente maravilloso.

Sin embargo, todo ese entusiasmo fue antes de poder probar el sistema de juego dirigiendo una aventura, ahora hay algunas observaciones que podemos hacer con más bases.

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It is precisely in this where lies perhaps the greatest difficulty of the Tales from the Loop system, because for the game the resolution of the mystery is as important as the children being at home for dinner and living with the NPCs of their families, their boring and monotonous lives of day to day can not be forgotten and therefore the game director must take into account the intrafamilial relationships of each child, as well as their relationships between them and spin all this with the stories we are telling.

An example of this is the first chapter of Eerie Indiana called Eterna Pack, where the mother of Marshall, the protagonist of the series, is involved in a group of sales of products to store food by catalog in a boring urbanization of middle class without find out that behind these products there is a dark secret, that your child solves without her noticing.