Inspired by John Carpenter’s Halloween and other classic slasher films, the survival horror tabletop game 1978: The Night They Came Home is now funding through Kickstarter.

Emulating classic slasher films of the ’70s and ’80s, 1978: The Night They Came Home is a survival horror tabletop game that pits a slasher against a survivor on Halloween night.

One player takes on the role of the Survivor, a resilient person caught up in a sequence of escalating nightmarish events as they are pursued by the Slasher, a supernatural killing machine controlled by the opposing player. Using customized cards to generate prompts and build an emergent narrative, play moves from day to night on a forsaken Halloween in 1978.

During the day, both Survivor and Slasher build their backstories, drafting cards and accumulating resources for an imminent showdown. In the night, Slasher and Survivor enter the house for a deadly game of cat and mouse, using the cards they gained during the day in a violent battle for survival.

1978 features a screen-printed cloth playmat featuring the fated house where our showdown takes place, custom knife tokens to track resources, thematic playing cards with narrative prompts, and dual rulebooks for Survivor and Slasher, all housed in a telescoping box. A digital edition is included at no additional cost.

Expected to ship in October, the 1v1 story-forward game is created by World Champ Game Co.’s Adam Vass (Cybermetal 2012) and Megacorp Games’s Logan Dean (The Company: Corporate Survival Horror) with illustrations by Justin “Black Coffiend” Valliere.

“I’ve made my fair share of horror games in the past six years, but 1978 is unique in its hyperfocus and its ability to create suspense collaboratively while reflecting the sort of competitive nature that exists between the killer and final girl,” notes Vass. “In many roleplaying games, players are working together to overcome struggle, and board games have players competing to win; 1978 threads the needle of having both and marrying story and strategy in unique new ways.“

Learn more and help fund the project over on Kickstarter now!