We almost had a 30 Days of Night card game

Last year’s survival card game Outpost: Siberia began life as an adaptation of bloodsucking comic book 30 Days of Night, one of its creators has revealed.

Designed by Dead of Winter co-creator Jon Gilmour and Sagrada co-designer Daryl Andrews, Siberia is just the first instalment in a planned trilogy of Outpost games that continues this year with Outpost: Amazon, introducing the need to capture monsters alongside enduring the harsh environment.

Outpost: Siberia’s arctic setting and mutated creatures recalls the frozen horror of John Carpenter’s The Thing, but it was initially inspired by the Alaskan vampires of Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith’s influential comic book mini-series, Andrews told us.

“One question I asked Jon was about the original influences of Dead of Winter,” he explained. “In chatting he mentioned one source of influence was 30 Days of Night. I pitched the idea to Jon about making a 30 Days of Night card game where we were restraint to only using a deck of cards. It was a crazy idea – but I think designers love restraints and challenges.”

Gilmour and Andrews then took the concept of a single 30 Days of Night survival card game to IDW, the Outpost: Siberia publisher that also owns the rights to the universe via its comic book imprint.

“When we originally pitched the first game in the series, we pitched the game in the 30 Days of Night universe,” Andrews said. “IDW are the creators of 30 Days of Night and they seemed open to a game in the world. However, before signing the game, IDW had some internal meetings and determined they were not ready for this game to be set in that universe.

“However, they still really liked the core and asked us to make it similar in feel. So we tried to come up with monsters like vampires but also fitting the environment of the game.”

It’s not clear whether Gilmour and Andrews’ proposed project was related to 30 Days of Night: A Game of Survival, an adaptation of the series revealed back in 2013 before vanishing into the ether. Either way, we’re still waiting on a proper tabletop take on the comics.

As for the future of Outpost, it seems that its creators aren’t short of ideas of where to take the franchise next.

“Jon and I have lots of ideas waiting for future games in the series if we get to make them,” Andrews said. “Our third location is Area 51 if we get chance. We think we got some fun ideas with aliens. If we get the chance to make the fourth game in the series, we will be set in Chernobyl – where players need to be concerned with not only the monsters outside, but not mutating yourself.”