"Apokalypse - A forgotten game brought back from the void..." Topic

Hello!

A few months ago me and a buddy started reminiscing about RPG conventions back in our youth, and we particularly talked about a wargame, Apokalypse, that existed here in Sweden, though written in english, around 1996-1998. It was definitely an original product with exceptionally high production values considering it was made by an indie operation consisting of three young 20-somethings, before there was even an internet. Wholly unlike anything else (still true imo) at the time, it also had quite the peculiar setting and atmosphere around it… ;)

That game pretty much disappeared, two-three years after it was released in 1996, presumably because the developers got tired of touring conventions with all their gaming material, while at the same time having next to no distribution or possibility of advertisement for their game.

Anyhow, the conversation me and my friend had made me want to look into what happened to the developers of Apokalypse? Today this game has practically never existed, even on the internet, which I find strange and disconcerting in this time of complete and archived information? But thanks to sheer stroke of luck (and cached text snippets in google search results) I managed to get hold of the phone number to the head designer CJ Håkansson. He put me in touch with another of the core trio, Malin Rydén, to ask her if there was any chances of making Apokalypse digitally available. Which wasn't possible, the raw material for Apokalypse had only existed on old ZIP drives, long lost throughout the years. But she did have some spare copies of the core book left in storage, and I was able to buy one of them.

Since I find it incredibly sad and unfair that a game with as much of effort and quality put into it as Apokalypse had, it still had been totally forgotten and ignored by history and the gaming community. Which is why I really wanted to make a pdf out of it, that way at least the word could be spread to handfuls of fellow wargaming enthusiasts?

And in correspondence with the three developers, that I met on a convention ~20 years ago, they made it clear that they weren't opposed to the idea (they were rather shocked that anyone even remembered the game…) so I got to work trying to produce a presentable document from the book. Which is now finished!

So here it is, Apokalypse, a 25mm squad based army wargame:
link

Only writer Malin Rydén wanted to have her contact info included in the pdf, CJ Håkansson considered Apokalypse a thing of the past and wanted to be left alone with his writing. I got the feeling the same work ethic applied to illustrator Ola Holmdahl, whom is now busy at DICE Entertainment.
Which is a shame because they are very nice and helpful people, and had quite a few stories from the wargaming industry and convention scene of the late 90's to share. :) For example having to ban Target Games representatives from visiting the offices, since those douches constantly tried poaching what few employees Håkansson, Rydén and Holmdahl had. Or having gaming magazines call them "a blight upon the hobby" due to the mature orientation in which Apokalypse was written. It was slightly different times, I guess?

Oh well, I've been talking for quite a while here, but I do hope you'll find it an interesting/horrifying read, and especially having the chance to try it out for yourselves!
Because after all it was quite a fun and exciting game (and please remember that this was released in an era of the cartoonish 40k 2ed; absolutely noone had heard of "grimdark" by this time ;)), made by some very talented people, that's been all but stricken from the records for most of the last two decades. But being now available as freeware I hope it'll at least be properly remembered!

Thanks for your time.

Thank for finding this and putting up on the internet

Very cool. Thanks.

I would try to look but the linked site is bombarding my phone with pop ups and trying to install software.

It's available here as well:
link

Sadly the material for expansions that's occasionally hinted at, throughout the book, doesn't exist any more. :( It was all destroyed when Hardcore Media was liquidated, no copies. So we'll never see additional rules or types of Landmates, robot psychosis, campaign rules, Metal Fetishists or Wormcarriers… :< Oh well.