Il Fantasma del Giallo is now live on Kickstarter!

Check out the Kickstarter page here!

Il Fantasma del Giallo is a collaborative, narrative- and character-driven TTRPG. You play disgraced Actors unable to escape the pull of the strange cinematic world of the Yellow, a narrative dimension of brutal murder, dive bars and dimly lit streets. Forced to live out a seemingly endless sequence of violent European murder mysteries, your Actors must discover dark truths about their past to have any hope of escape. Hunt for the clues to your lost memories, and find the forgotten and unforgivable misdeeds that earned you your place in this purgatory. 

Films can't last forever, and sooner or later you will return to the Real. Ask questions, seek memories, resolve old grudges, even try to escape if you like. It won't last. You're drawn here, as if driven by some ancient migratory instinct. You have a purpose; a doom. There's no way to leave without resolving it, one way or another. 

And so you will go back into the Yellow. You must. Back to questioning reprobates at dive bars about brutal murders. Back to running from hulking shadows on dimly lit streets, the glint of cold steel flashing in the corner of your eye. Back to mistrust, back to lies, back to hidden agendas and underhanded schemes. Back to the killing and the dying. Perhaps, through it all, you'll find out why you're here...and why you deserve to be.

Drawing from magical realist and neo-noir storytelling traditions, Il Fantasma uses a trick-taking card system and is heavily inspired by metatextual art, like The Twilight Zone, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, and the Giallo genre of Italian thrillers. 

Giallo has its roots in Noir cinema, mystery prose, and post-war Neorealism. These films don't avert their gaze from the dark side of humanity, but revel in vice and violence. Giallo are not concerned with the innate evil, monsters and magic of Gothic cinema, but more humanistic horrors - strangers at the door, the enigmatic grin of a jackbooted official, an empty street in the dead of night. In Giallo, evil is not born, it's chiselled from the mold of a corrupt world.

If you’ve never seen a Giallo film, never fear - the game is designed from the ground up to be accessible. Just by following the mechanics as written, you’ll create authentically Giallo stories. 

The man yelled “action” and we’re entering the Yellow. The studio is gone. The cameras are gone. The crew, the lighting rigs, the loitering stagehands, the director, the actors waiting for their shot, all gone. The set lingers, but what was once a facade is now just a place. 

In Il Fantasmo Del Giallo you play Actors, but when they step into the cinematic dimension of the Yellow, you also become their Roles, characters that seem completely real until the credits roll. The two personalities bleed together, in more ways than one.

In the Yellow, you are hunted by The Killer, an entity formed from pure narrative. Unstoppable, unknowable, they are everyone and no one - that is, until they are ready to be someone.

Your Role may die, but your Actor will live on, whether they want to or not; newly burdened with passions, fears, and a bevy of horrible experiences.

When they return to the the Real the narrative power of the Yellow clings to Actors like morning dew. Memories long-forgotten roil into their brains with the urgency of last night's cocktails, carrying a similar quality of regret, but also newfound powers. 

Reality bends where it needs to, and the energy and talent of new acquantances is there for the taking - Insiders whose expertise can be exploited in the Yellow...but not without consequence. 

"For a non-TTRPG person such as myself, Il Fantasma del Giallo is a truly unique experience. Its clever design allows for smooth and comfortable creativity. Not often can you embody a delightfully terrible person while building a grim cinematic mystery with your friends (and foes)."

- Märten Rattasepp (Disco Elysium, Pentiment) 

"A complex, fascinating, and deeply loving homage to the world of Giallo and collaborative player storytelling."

- Xalavier Nelson (Hypnospace Outlaw, El Paso Elsewhere)

"Creating mysteries in tabletop RPGs is hard; creating non-prep mysteries is borderline impossible. And yet, Il Fantasma del Giallo pulls it off with such effortless style and grace. It's almost like this game willed itself into existence. Definitely pick it up."

- Eddy Webb (Realms of Pugmire, Weird West, World of Darkness MMO)

"Brimming with delicious reality drifting melodrama, Il Fantasma del Giallo takes the good and the bad of the genre and transforms it into an unforgettable TTRPG experience that’s actually built around its source material to make you feel part of it. Its collaborative, free flowing form of storytelling and mystery building will make sure every player feels involved as the drama and conflicts begin to build around them."

- Michael Sweeney (What Haunts Us, The Hawthrone Effect)

"I am so excited for Il Fantasma, it is dripping with chilling atmosphere while exploring the gripping tensions between actors and the roles they play."

- Becky Annison (Bitemarks, Ex Tenebris, Lovecraftesque)

"Like the best Giallo movies, Il Fantasma del Giallo is both grotesquely lurid and whip-smart, both hazily disorienting and incredibly pointed. It’d be worth your time with just its core of murder-mystery movie emulation, but it goes beyond that: a metafictional campaign structure that drags your actors, film by film, into a hazy, nightmarish realm that gleefully violates the line between their self and their performances."

- Minærva McJanda (Voidheart Symphony, Children of Time RPG, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins)

"Il Fantasma del Giallo is helping to paint the vivid yellow pall of the current zeitgeist. Eschewing the corporate office aesthetics and violently disconnective reality television tropes we find in media such as The Backrooms, Battle Royale, or Severance, we are instead treated to something more grubby, more sleazy, more surreal, more real. If you are thinking Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive or Berberian Sound Studio, you are going in the right direction, a direction which crashes your characters into rock bottom and beyond."

- Tanya Floaker (The Thunder Perfect Mind, Mum Chums)

"I’ve never seen a Giallo film and, thanks to Laurence’s diligent work, I don’t think I’ll have to; Il Fantasma del Giallo is clearly a work of mad devotion to the author’s beloved genre, and not only acts as a primer on the movement’s themes and motivations but flings the players overarm into the grimy, washed-out world of 1970’s Italian exploitation cinema."

- Grant Howitt (Spire, Eat the Reich, Honey Heist)

"In the innovative, playing-card-driven, cinematic–thriller TTRPG, Laurence proves himself a strong writer with a crystal-clear sense of purpose. [...] Il Fantasma is the type of modernist TTRPG I love: adventuresome in theme, energetic in mood, high in player agency, and accessible in rules—but never dumbed-down or a mere clone. The game’s mechanics serve the story, and it seems easy enough to tinker with them or bring aspects you like into your own game. I can’t wait to play and enjoy the brutal catharsis of solving a surreal, seedy mystery—or realizing I’ve been the killer the entire time. Prendi questo!

- Wythe Marschall (Stillfleet, Blister Critters)

"This is a bold and brave concept wrapped up in deep and satisfying mechanics. See you in The Yellow!"

- George Bickers (Mappa Mundi, Gallows Corner)

" [It’s] like Robert W. Chambers 'The King In Giallo', an ingenious love letter to the Italian murder mystery that recontextualizes the trappings of the genre into pure nightmare cosmic horror. A gorgeous game made with a deep knowledge and love that I can't wait to play."

- Trevor Henderson (Scarewaves, Siren Head)

"One of the most refreshing TTRPGs I've ever played... wildly creative and made me feel I like was in a Giallo film or a Sam Barlow game."

- Chantal Ryan (darkwebSTREAMER)

Il Fantasma del Giallo is split between two realities - the Real, the strange purgatory in which the Actors are trapped; and the Yellow, the dimension built not of sight and sound, but of narrative. Characters alternate between playing Roles within the Yellow – accumulating experiences, Truths, and Trauma – and using those resources in the Real to build their backstories, discover hidden mysteries, and perhaps find some way to escape this existence (but I wouldn’t get your hopes up). 

Within the film world of the Yellow, the mystery narrative is built seamlessly through collaboration - and not even the Director knows where the plot is going. Scenes are drafted as you play, with the Leads, Clues, and Truths that you acquire contributing to a growing web of vice and deception. Reality bends and backfills as the same pieces of information slip hazily back and forth between truth and lies. At the end of a film, the waveform collapses, and The Killer is unmasked - with one of the Actors left holding the knife. 

The storytelling systems in this game are built around a central theme of Giallo cinema - unreliability. Space is warped, time is bendable, and no fact can be established that can't later be recontextualised. 

Truths become lies. Confessions become delusions. Allies become enemies. 

Victims become killers.

Back in the Real, play is more freeform. Your characters build upon the events of the Yellow, using the Truths uncovered there to remember events, places and people from their pasts, and to advance their characters and acquire new abilities. Characters will also have to deal with the consequences of their actions in the Yellow, particularly if they made use of Insiders - non-player characters whose talents can be exploited in the film world at the cost of their real-world safety and happiness. 

The game uses a bespoke card-based trick-taking system to resolve fights, arguments, chase scenes, and other such events. When two characters have opposing aims, a conflict is initiated, and bidding rounds are played with a back-and-forth exchange of narrative. Each conflict can be extended and escalated for some time, in theory, but the longer it goes on, the bigger the pile of Trauma gets. Whoever loses the conflict, takes the Trauma and all the narrative consequences this implies. 

Failure is not truly failure, as the very things that will get you killed or implicated in the Yellow are the building blocks to uncovering your memories, advancing your character, and discovering the mysteries of the Real.

The book will be your guide to the Yellow. It contains:

• The game system, containing all the rules and guidance you’ll need to run short or long campaigns, as well as one shots. 
• 9 Actor Archetypes, and a full campaign system for plumbing the depths of their sins.
• Prompts to help you create new film premises, Roles for those films, chararacteristics of the city, and non-Actor characters to populate both realities with. 
• A breakdown of the settings, themes, and character types of the Giallo oeuvre, including a potted history of Italian cinema. 
• Extensive information for Directors, including fleshed-out suggestions and prompts for the mysteries behind the studio and the films within the Yellow.
• Discussions of the themes within the Giallo genre and how to tackle them — both those that have aged well and those that haven’t. 
• Unique, evocative artwork inspired by the posters of 60s/70s European cinema. 

Also available are the Collector's Edition and Premiere Edition - fancy rebound copies of the rulebook crafted by the master booksmiths at Creative Quest UK. You can see some of their handiwork below, as well as on their instagram page. 

There is only one physical product: the rulebook. However, there is a range of digital add-ons available. 

Original Digital Soundtrack

Composed by Vortigan King, synth specialist, this OST will feature 10 original tracks - one theme for each of the nine Archetypes, plus one for The Killer. The soundtrack follows in the tradition of the great Giallo composers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, such as Ennio Morricone and Goblin. Perfect for setting the mood for your evenings of vice and deception…

Effigies of Death - STL Bust Collection

A range of 3D printable character busts, one for each Archetype, plus one for The Killer. Scaled and supported for both resin and filament printing, these busts are perfect for painting and displaying, or for using as markers on the murder map or for your place at the table. 

Twisted Little Lives - STL Miniatures Collection

A range of 3D printable 28mm scale miniatures, one for each Archetype, plus one for The Killer. Ideal for use in any given pulp wargame, for display, or for use as markers and visual aids during a game of the TTRPG. 

Community Copies

Both community PDFs and community books are available as Addons. Community PDFs will be listed for free, to be claimed on a first-come-first-serve basis. Community books will be donated to gaming clubs, libraries, and other community driven spaces. 

Keep an eye on the Hardy Roach Games youtube channel, where a recorded one-shot session using a playtest draft of the game will be dropping very soon. 

You can also start playing the game yourself right away by getting the free Quickstart version of Il Fantasma del Giallo! Those who get the Quickstart will also receive a prototype bust of The Killer as an STL file. 

You can also preview two of the tracks from the original OST here and here.

For ongoing insights into the development process, consider joining the Hardy Roach Games Patreon, which will also help support continued development of this and other projects.

For more information, check out the Kickstarter page! The project funded in only 36 hours, and so as the amount of pledges rises we'll be announcing improvements to the quality of the print run and bonus extras!