A Filipina-made tabletop RPG called ARC is making waves on Kickstarter, achieving its $7,000 base goal 23 minutes after going live on June 1, and reaching $28,000 a day after. 

Now the funding stands at $56,000, with pledges ending on July 1. 

A quick official description of the game said “ARC is a tabletop RPG where humble heroes rise to slay the apocalypse.”

“Utilizing a real-time Doomsday Clock literally counting down to the apocalypse, ARC helps build high-urgency stories with satisfying payoffs.”

Bianca Canoza, the game’s creator, says ARC follows in the footsteps of past Kickstarters by Filipino and Southeast Asian game designers, such as Our Shores and Once More Into the Void.

Canoza is writer, designer, and artist for the game. 

ARC Kickstarter page

Having reached funding milestones beyond the base target, the campaign will also be able to tap the talents of three other Southeast Asian game designers and three Filipino illustrators.

Canoza said that the game follows along with her “long-term advocacy to uplift the SEA [tabletop] community.” Canoza, known as momatoes in the scene, is also the creator of the Across RPGSEA website, which tackles SEA-made tabletop RPGs. Her other current tabletop projects include The Magus, which will soon be printed in Italy; and Orbital Blues, where she’s part of the writing team. 

The game’s art is breathtaking, with the game’s creator calling it “deliciously dark.” The mechanics themselves are sounding poetic: 

“Stories you make and play in ARC run against a timer. While heroes navigate and transform the world around them, the real-time Doomsday Clock ticks to an irreversibly cataclysmic event. That doom is up to you. It could be an explosive battle, the literal end of the world – or something more intimate: the departure of beloved spirits, the farewell of an era.”

It’s looking at a late 2021 release, with the soft-copy PDF version coming out in September and the A5-sized, 172-page hard copy coming out in October. US-based Exalted Funeral will be handling publication. – Rappler.com