The Zone

Such a great book bastardised by poor imitations.

There is a reason for that. Tarkovsky made a close to the book adaption (took one year), but the film was badly developed and all of it became unusable. So he got with the Tarkovski brothers to salvage the project and reshooted the film in less time and with less money.

Given circumstances I think they did amazingly well.

Roadside Picnic has little in common with stalker though, despite being a source of ideas for it.

Like, the dante's inferno video game has more in common with the divine comedy than stalker has in common with roadside picnic.

Annihilation is closer to Roadside Picnic.

Not sure if you guys realize, thats the cover of an edition of the book that came out after the movie. The book is far better than game or movie.

Interesting. I'm going to see that tonight.

Gravity anomalies, going sideways or clinging to certain structures. Just picture a squat little building absolutely heaped in trash, the grass laying flat as it's pulled towards it.

Temporal anomalies. Seeing the place as it was before the zone. Rare safe spots to rest. Just don't stay to long or you might become a part of that timeline forever.

The ground beneath your feet rises and falls very slowly as if breathing. If shot fresh red blood wells up from the bullet hole but no amount of digging reveals the source.

A sphere that seems to radiate the absence of light. It's form is slippery, inconsistent and painfully cold to the touch but it's much lighter than it's apparent size suggests. Geiger counters scream at the edge of the darkness it casts but within it do not even register a background count.

Red crystalline structures of opaque material seem to grow from bodies in a certain courtyard. The bigger and fresher the larger these structures grow. All of them lean towards each other, as if seeking to be one.

animals from other contents wander about, untouched by the blowouts or radiation. They wander as if in a daze, seeming to see things that you cannot. If shot they die as expected but inside the flesh reeks of preservatives like formaldehyde and you can't tell if they were really alive before you shot them.

A forest of green trees sits in the middle of a highly irradiated area. You can see fruit and hear birdsong from within.

A massive sinkhole has opened up near your camp as you slept, somehow this didn't wake you or alert the guy on watch. Things thrown in fall up. If you want to know what sits at it's bottom you'll have to climb headfirst.

At night Soundless lights flicker and dance through the clouds. They change color and flicker in patterns that change, seeming to be drawn to lights on the ground, changing pattern in response to the flashlight your partner shines up at them. As he pulses it they pulse back as more gather above

Gonna post this here, since its relevant
pid.bungie.org/Roadside_Picnic_Artifacts.html

I still don't know why they didn't make the stalker games more like the books. There are a million mutant shooters out there, but nothing that focuses on environmental hazards and exploration like the story of the book.

Thank you user. As a GM for Mutant: Year Zero, this stuff is great.

thomas-hersey.wiki.uml.edu/file/view/Roadside+Picnic.pdf

aye

Cool. Will definitely get use out of this.