Enter a 1980s action figure-inspired intro to the sci-fi TTRPG, Stillfleet! Get the rules needed to play PLUS 4 radical pregenerated characters AND a full venture: travel to a remote island to investigate a floating techno-castle in the sky…
Enter the Nostalgitron: a floating techno-dungeon capable of bending the laws of time and space… that is currently stuck working for Ubun the Ripper, a petty snake-person villain obsessed with the “Ancient” religion of Saturday morning cartoons.
In this action-packed romp, play as one of 4 totally radical “heroes” (read, corporate space marines working for the Worshipful Company of Stillfleeters) sent to investigate rumors of the Nostalgitron’s arrival on the spooky market-world of Ruguņ. Get the adventure plus all of the rules you need to try the world’s most infamously weird/smart sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game in one conveniently comic-sized book.
Inspired by the single greatest source of American mythology—1980s/90s Saturday-morning cartoon shows designed to sell sugary cereal and articulated plastic action figures—Enter the Nostalgitron is a playable quickstart for the TTRPG Stillfleet, lovingly illustrated by Michael J. Cohen (Arkangel Wulf Design and Illustration).
A full adventure featuring 8 distinct, modular “playsets” (dangerous special zones with distinct rules)
Quickstart rules for Stillfleet using the quick-to-learn, ultra-flexible Grit System
4 pregenerated characters: Asimov (the Smartie), Delaney (the Party Person), Le Guin (the Leader), and PKD (the Cool Emo Edgelord)
4 full new encounters: the slimy Slerps, Disco and Heavy (Ubun’s henchpeople), and Ubun the Ripper himself
Tons of goopy details, from lore to fun optional mechanics to bring your cartoon space adventure to life
64 pages of content, all full-color, professionally designed and edited!
Gorgeous comic-book art!
And everything we create is 100% #HumanMade
The miniatures
For those who play games in meat-space, choose from 1 of 8 full-color acrylic standees depicting the radical heroes or the heinous villains of Enter the Nostalgitron. Each 2-inch miniature stands on a 1-inch round base, perfect for your existing TTRPG maps and miniature setups!
The sticker sheet
Display your disloyalty to the Co. with this sheet of full-color stickers featuring our four radical heroes, Asimov, Le Guin, Delaney, and PKD, along with the Enter the Nostalgitron logo and more!
Early bird special: free bonus episode!
PLUS, if you back in the first 48 hours, you get a free PDF side-episode full of extra-cartoon-inspired venture hooks about everyone’s favorite talking chubcat monster-pet (gremlin-sidekick? ontological abomination?), Scruth-Scruth!
Both books plus 2 bonus micro-adventures AND a free enamel pin!
As part of BackerKit Collab, we’re excited to partner with Spicy Tuna RPG, who are launching the pulp horror game Blackthorn. Both of our projects are retro, pulptastic, quick-to-learn, setting-rich indie TTRPGs. Together, we’ve brewed up some amazing crossover bonuses for double-backers!
Get bonus content for both games: 2 micro-adventures printed on oversized postcards:
Experience a slice of the Nostalgitron inside of Blackthorn with a horrifically goopy new monster-scenario inspired by the The Blob
Import a piece of Blackthorn into the Nostalgitron with a 1920s, punch-a-hero-in-the-face teen wolf roaming a haunted boardwalk
In addition, we’re throwing in a free high-quality enamel pin: this is official, limited-edition Stillfleet launch merch!
Don’t miss out on a terrifyingly good deal! Get two out-of-this-world games plus bonus content and merch, all at backer-only prices. (Physical reward levels only.)
Set in a paradoxically bleak and vibrant superfuture, Stillfleet is politically charged cosmic fantasy at its weirdest: a sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game that empowers players with simple, intuitive mechanics and hundreds of options for powers, set in an unforgettable game cosmos.
The full game offers 10 classes of Co. voidminer, 22 sapient species, dozens of legendary and inscrutable items of archaetech, and over 20 full encounters with dangerous deepvoid aliens, automata, and extradimensional entities.
Play as a tech-hacking banshee, a peacemaking witness, a reality-warping tremulant, a giant bug, a strong AI trapped in a flash drive, a talking cactus, a void elf from the Dyson-sphere-enclosed Wytch Planet, Tnín… The choices are yours. The cosmos of Stillfleet is hilarious and horrifying. The struggles, all too real.
If you heard Stillfleet on the hit real-play podcast Fun City, now is your chance to experience the game for yourself—in a totally new cartoon look and feel.
Note, there is a free version of the basic Stillfleet Quickstart Rules with additional rules and player options (4 entire classes of voidminer, 9 pregenerated characters, and 1 venture hook): https://stillfleet.com/products/the-stillfleet-quickstart-rules
If you get both Enter the Nostalgitron and the Stillfleet Quickstart Rules, you’ll have a total of 13 pregens, 1 venture hook, and 1 full, book-length venture!
Stillfleet's hallmark Grit System blends narrative impact—some powers just happen, no dice required—with dramatic rolling. This mix of “it just happens” and “roll for it!” makes for dynamic gameplay without the need to consult endless charts or stretch your math skills.
When you do roll, grit is everything. Gamble on the outcomes of your actions by burning grit to boost your rolls. This lets you set up absolutely epic moments—but remember, you still fail whenever you roll a natural 1.
To start, we're translating more art into sweet, sweet merch. If we get to 150 backers, we'll include the option of adding-on a Scruth-Scruth mini—and backers at the $45-tier will get it free!
If we get to 250 backers, we'll double the number of stickers that go out with that add-on. Again, $45-tier backers will get the extra stickers for free!
Michael J. Cohen is an illustrator and graphic designer from Vancouver, Canada. Born in the 80’s and raised by the television, Michael is obsessed with pop culture references and everything totally awesome. He’s spent decades honing his craft as a visual artist, inspired by classic cartoons, sci-fi epics, and manga, resulting in a style that blends the charm of saturday morning cartoons with the action of modern animation. When he’s not drawing cartoons, Michael works with brands big and small to create memorable logos and visual identities to help them achieve their creative goals.
Wythe Marschall (founder and lead game designer, Stillfleet Studio) is an experienced writer, science communicator, and game designer. He created the RPG Stillfleet, the underlying Grit System, and the Stillfleet Studio to blend two lifelong obsessions—Leftist politics and tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). He is the co-developer of Blister Critters by Anthony Grasso. Wythe is currently working on a number of new books, including PICARO!, an early modern fantasy game.
Edited by the amazing Jedd Cole, who edited Qadida and Blister Critters!
Kickstarter music by Will Savino of Borough Bound.
The Stillfleet Studio team is:
Anthony Grasso
Ethan Gould
Wythe Marschall
Sunaree Paiwong
Christopher Pickett
We have a bad-ass track record, having fulfilled 4 prior crowdfunding projects for TTRPGs. Thanks to our manufacturing partner, Boda Games, and our fulfillment partner, Studio 2.
This project is human made. No AI wrote or illustrated Qadida or the other Stillfleet products. (The rad Human Made logo was created by HINOKODO.)
“Stillfleet has precisely the sort of sci-fi tone that I like, in that it’s so soft you could spread it on toast. It’s chock-full of Interesting Weird. There are several kinds of magic sword, the rulebook looks like a prog-rock album cover, and very little presented in the fiction is explainable or explained.” —Grant Howitt, co-designer of Spire and Heart: The City Beneath.
“Stillfleet strikes a perfect balance that eludes the vast majority of TTRPGS: the system is quick and easy to pickup, but the setting possesses a thoughtfulness and depth—at the first edition!—that rivals any other game, even those which have been around for decades. It’s a super-future spacefaring game on its surface, but it succeeds at helping tell stories of political intrigue, cloak and dagger mystery, large-scale geopolitical conflict, cyberpunk noir, and intimate interpersonal drama. If there is a bottom to the depth stories it can help tell, I have not seen it!” —Mike Rugnetta, Fun City GM and former Idea Channel host.
“Stillfleet is a triumph that imagines the far far future and the socio-political inter-workings of staying alive. Makes you think about the way you eat, breathe, and bring about change in your provincial space town, on Spindle, and across the universe. It was so easy to learn, too.Stillfleet allowed me to make big swings with my character without keeping tabs on how much I would need to level up. You can already do so much weird, powerful stuff from the first session.” —Jenn de la Vega, AKA Merkis Imeldar, Fun City player and food influencer.
“Stillfleet drops you into a horrific and hilarious universe, with blessedly understandable game mechanics and plenty of versatility. I am quietly confident no matter what stories you want to tell Stillfleet will help you tell them.” —the old man.
“Stillfleet pushes all of my happy buttons. It’s anti-capitalist without being dour, it’s absurdist and silly but still grounded in the day-to-day, and it’s a highly detailed and vibrant world.” —sinker.
“The system is simple and elegant, and the world of Spindle and the Worshipful Company is a great fit for campaigns running the gamut from pulp sci-fi to goofy space adventures to byzantine interstellar politics. My favorite TTRPG by far!” —garbae.
“Stillfleet is a game where you explore the depths of ship hulks, friendly planets, in a far future where long forgotten science is indistinguishable from magic. … It’s a guaranteed good time, and if you [REDACTED] the [REDACTED], then man, you're in for a wild ride!” —Oh_Nanners.
“As a game system, it allows everyone at the table to be extremely powerful and change the direction of a scene or a story at the drop of a hat… Its die-based stats also Just Work in a way that d20-style stats never quite have—they give you an instant understanding of both who you are and what you're up against. … As a sci-fi setting Stillfleet is highly unique and almost overwhelmingly rich. … It has clever twists on classic aliens (the animalistic and terrifying Xenoglades, the shapeshifting subterfugous Solarians) and wild new ideas (the serial-killer-slash-performance-artist Void Elves, the hiveminded crab-fungus mega-scientist Mi-Go)—the world never lacks for threats, villains, and most importantly, foes who make you ponder whether YOU’RE actually the villain.” —Ben Ferber.
“My campaign ended with my character transformed into a swarm of tiny versions of myself after I escaped a giant jellyfish monster with my half bear half hamster companion. 10/10 game can’t wait to play again.” —whattangledwebs.
“Stillfleet is a glorious mindfuck of a game, with wildly entertaining and original worldbuilding and incredibly fun mechanics.” —Aaron van Neste.
“Stillfleet integrates mechanics and setting in a very flavourful way. It brings a sense of weirdness in the specific sci-fi way and delivers into a crunchy but not complex ruleset. This is a game that understands dungeons better than most classic dungeoncrawlers.” —M.A. Guax.
🎲 POCKETOPIA is a celebration of portable easy-to-learn tabletop games featuring 50+ creators launching together on BackerKit from March 13 - April 3!
🏆 Here’s how you can earn exclusive event rewards:
Cross-Collab Freebies: Look for projects marked as Cross-Collab partners! Back both projects to earn a FREE reward from each creator. The more pairs you support, the more freebies you collect!
Pocketopia Dice Bag: Back 6 projects or more to unlock this exclusive reward, surveyed and shipped by BackerKit.
⚔️ Rewards at a glance:
2 FREE rewards for every Cross-Collab pair you back (one from each creator!)
1 EXTRA BONUS pin in our case!
1 FREE limited edition Pocketopia 2025 Dice Bag when you back 6+ projects
⭐ PRO TIP: Maximize your freebies by supporting Cross-Collab pairs! For example, support 3 Cross-Collab pairs (6 projects) to earn up to 6 exclusive freebies while unlocking the Dice Bag!
*Only pledges to physical reward tiers or main digital offerings (if no physical items are offered) qualify towards earning these limited FREEBIES. Please refer to individual project pages for unlock requirements.
Bridging the ominous stars to bring you the most replayable indie games this side of Transylvania…
How did we get here? Well, summary version… Mix 2 parts twentieth-century weird tale with 1 part classic 1920s horror movie and 1 part 1990s sci-fi cartoon, pour that over a chunky new-school ice cube of design, and you’ve got a BackerKit Collab made in RPG Heaven, my friend. (Or was it that other, cooler place?)
Full version: as small indie TTRPG studios, we found ourselves approaching the inaugural Pocketopia and its call to substantively Collab with a child-like sense of wonder and dread: who would fit the bill? Who would get us?
Luckily, there was Discord: BackerKit’s server allowed us to peruse our fellow game designers’ Pocketopian pitches and begin to answer our questions.
The Stillfleet Studio loved the look and feel of Blackthorn: we love weird horror and classic monster movies, but we hate the political legacy of Lovecraft and Hollywood. In Blackthorn, we saw both great graphic design and writing (Marco has written some amazing work for Mothership) as well as a new game that echoed some of the elements of our personal favorites in the genre of modern horror (Death Sentence, Death Game, pretty much anything by Adam Vass). Blackthorn is a celebration of how to escalate tension, give characters deep meaning, do a wounds system, and really squeeze the magic from spooky public domain art!
And we were chuffed to learn that Marco from Spicy Tuna could vibe with our own brand of over-the-top, all-magic-and-wonder-is-just-really-bizarre-tech sci-fi. More than any other Stillfleet project, Enter the Nostalgitron doubles down on three of our core maxims: make the setting maximal (it’s a city-sized floating techno-dungeon); make the theme satirical (the plot is straight out of Justice Warriors or Mad Max); and make the system a flexible tool (beginner-friendly, rules bright). If you’ve never tried the infamously weird, funny, and politically engaged Leftist sci-fi of Stillfleet, you must enter the Nostalgitron with us this spring.
Thus the dual-campaign before you: collectively, we’re doing pulp horror × Saturday morning SF, firing on all metaphorical cylinders. Pick up both games and guarantee your friends at least two immaculately strange + funny sessions: cross through and enjoy both sides of the sincerity/irony mirror! Explore the comical and politically terrifying alongside the immediately, viscerally monstrous! Replay the twentieth century, start to finish, with safety tools and save states this time!
We are almost done with all project materials. The book is written, illustrated, and laid out. We are making some improvements and adding additional graphics in response to playtest feedback. The Scruth-Scruth side-episode is also written. The art for the minis is done. The enamel pins are already made.
Fulfillment
We will fulfill rewards as soon as we can. Our current deadlines are:
• Send backers PDFs by July 3, 2025 • Send backers all physical rewards by March 3, 2026
We will update backers on the manufacturing and shipping timeline as soon as we can, once we're done with the campaign and have placed our order with Boda Games.
Shipping
We will collect shipping fees after the campaign, closer to when we have the books printed and minis manufactured by Boda Games.
Physical rewards will be shipped by Studio 2. We'll have more details on physical shipping costs as we get closer to actually sending out packages.
PDFs will be sent by DriveThruRPG. We'll also add them to BackerKit, so you can find all of your BK rewards in one place.
