In July 2024 we presented the Spirit of ’77 Bundle featuring Spirit of ’77, the 1970s pop-culture RPG from Monkeyfun Studios. In a world where Nixon made a deal with aliens to win the Vietnam War and remains in power behind the scenes, your characters – kung-fu tough guys, red hot mommas, starry-eyed rockers, hardboiled sleuths on an expense account, maverick agents, motorcycle daredevils, you name it – might investigate government conspiracies, fight drug-dealing luchadores, ride shotgun in a Disco Ambulance, or confront angry spirits at 77,000 feet. You solve problems, shoot troubles, and stick it to The Man in funkadelic adventures that use an open-ended player-driven rules system Powered by the Apocalypse.
Spirit of ’77 player characters are meant to emulate Bruce Lee, Burt Reynolds, Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, James Brown, David Bowie, Evel Knievel, Hunter S. Thompson, James Garner, and lots of others who brought fun to the often dreary Me Decade. Every character has a Role (Bopper, Gonzo Journalist, Tough Guy, Vigilante, Honeypot, etc.), a Story (Ex-Con, Former Badge, Glam, Kung Fu, One Bad Mother, Holy Roller, War Vet, and so on), and a Buzz (motivation) such as Glam, Justice, Cold Hard Cash, or Peace of Mind. Characters and setting fuel the high-octane engine of Spirit of ’77; the mechanics are mostly reskinned Dungeon World Moves, which work fine to push the action forward in adventures like Cruise Ship of the Damned, Nine Lives in the Fast Lane, Women’s Prison of the Apes, and Superfast! Go!
Spirit of ’77 has also reached beyond the Disco Era to encompass the slickly corporate 1980s, with a space-opera one-shot called Rad Planet, a fantasy adventure Excalibur-style, and a Role inspired by Rambo. Some scenarios hearken back to the Old West and even to Elizabethan England, where you play Shakespearean characters like Falstaff and Lady Macbeth. If your players are too young to remember Watergate, Spirit‘s flexible and open-ended Apocalypse Engine mechanics adapt easily to today’s retro sensations like Stranger Things and Ready Player One.
This rad new Spirit of ’77 Bundle included the entire game line for a bitchin’ bargain price. There were four titles in our Funky Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Spirit of ’77 core rulebook (previously in the September 2017 Apocalypse Engine 2 Bundle), the rules expansion Wide World of ’77, and two scenario compilations: Greatest Hits 1 and Greatest Hits 2.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Even Funkier Collection with five more titles worth an additional $50, including three “Very Special Episode” one-shots – Masterpiece ’77, Return to the Cruise Ship of the Damned, and Wrath of Cons – and two “Pilots” (campaign starters): Rad Planet: Big Trouble in Little Jupiter and Spirit of the Seventh Realm: The Once, Twice, and Future King. Sweet!
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this Spirit of ’77 offer’s designated charity, the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program. Each year, the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, amplifies the voices of up-and-coming game designers by featuring them during an expenses-paid visit to Gen Con. The global Emerging Designer Program focuses on creators from marginalized communities.
