'Fungalpunk' RPG Signet City isn't afraid to be weird and political
Signet City, the upcoming RPG from Citizen Sleeper developer Gareth Damian Martin, will cast players as a parasite. Set in a brutalist, monochromatic gotham at
Signet City, the upcoming RPG from Citizen Sleeper developer Gareth Damian Martin, will cast players as a parasite. Set in a brutalist, monochromatic gotham at the edge of collapse, this entity will take control of different human hosts, directing their actions and accomplishing its own objectives. When asked what cultural touchpoints inspired the self-described "fungalpunk" RPG, Martin points to their own British upbringing, and the desire to "create something that would draw on that identity and history" — even if some of it might go over the heads an American audience. Before they began designing video games, they worked at a theater design company doing pre-visualization work. One production involved Sting's The Last Ship — a musical about the shipbuilding crisis in Newcastle in the 1980s. "There are these amazing pictures of Newcastle in the '80s of these huge ships towering over little terraced houses," they recall. "I remember thinking at the time that was science fiction happening in the past. There's something really interesting in that moment in history where industrialization collapsed. It's obviously cast a very long shadow over the UK." Martin envisioned an alternate universe 1980s northern British city in a series of sketches for Inktober. "Ever since I've been daring myself to make the video game version of that [series]," they say.
One of those drawings, titled "The Algae Burners," depicts a building that will appear in the game. For now, you can see a glimpse of it in Signet City's first trailer above. The Winter of Discontent, one of the most critical moments in recent British history, was also a "starting point" for Signet City. As Martin explains, it was both a "kind of labor struggle" and "ecological event." Between 1978 and 1979, the United Kingdom experienced its coldest winter in 16 years, which coincided with workers across the country striking to secure better pay. The combination of those things led to severe disruptions to the economy, and the subsequent downfall of then British Prime Minister James Callaghan, whose Labour Party lost the 1979 general election to the Conservative Party and Margaret Thatcher. A decade of Thatcherism would follow, and the rest, as they say, is history. "In the UK, it really is such a key moment," says Martin. "Like almost all of the political dialogues are arranged around what happened in the '80s." They were also inspired by British social photography of the '80s and in particular the work of photographer Tish Murtha. Like Sting, Murtha had a close connection to Newcastle, where she spent much of her professional career photographing the city's working-class and marginalized communities.
The BriefWire