Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm really excited to continue development on this project.
1. I have a few things in mind for the commander that make the role a bit more complex. Factions were in the original draft, but had to be left on the cutting room floor as were mechanics around clocks and advancing meta-level agendas.
2. I love this suggestion so much! I'll try to find things to incorporate.
Thank you so much for reading!
This is great! I think one of the hardest things about playing GMless RPGs is knowing how to move the story forward in a way all players are happy with, and I think the self-aware story structure of a Saturday morning kids show is an AMAZING way to do that.
I'd love to see this developed more with additional guidance and scenarios. I think it would make a superb party game.
Very nicely designed with a great aesthetic. It needs some work to make it feel a bit more impactful, and having to switch between keyboard and mouse hurt the pacing. Overall though it is a cool concept and I would love to see something like this developed further into the mecha version of something like Risk of Rain or Vampire Survivor.
Thank you! A major design principle I started from was that there shouldn't be complete NPCs. Even the extras are player created and should stand alone as characters. I intend to include tables to help players generate personalities, goals, etc. when I put together the final version.
I'm really looking forward to expanding things and working on the final version once the jam voting period closes. Thank you so much for reading it!
I really appreciate this suggestion! I had to think for a bit about how to incorporate trauma and ultimately decided not to delve into it too deeply for the playtest. It's downright hard to create game mechanics around mental health and has to be done extremely carefully. I intend to expand more on this in the final version where I have the time to address it thoughtfully.
What you will likely see is an effect on downtime and out of mission actions to create the dichotomy that harm affects your ability to fight, and trauma affects your ability to function or be comfortable outside of fighting.
I am really happy I got a chance to sit down and read through this. This is a massive amount of output for the period of the jam and the creators should be very proud of everything they were able to get down on paper!
I love the idea of the sort of cross-universe battleworld made up of the last survivors of various worlds. I also like how much effort the authors put into making sure that so many different genres of mecha story were represented. This whole thing is bursting with creativity and they came up with some things I never would have thought of.
All that said, it's a bit unclear how all the moving pieces will work together in play. The game would benefit from more GM guidance, world info, and adventure ideas. As is, it's a really cool character creation system and will be interesting to see if the authors expand on it in the future.
First off, I'm really hype to see a solo rpg submission! Solo rpgs have been getting a lot more popular and I think this is the first mecha one I've seen.
I also really like what info we get on the setting. It sounds like a cool, weird universe and it really sparked my curiosity and imagination. I also think it's a great idea to do military themes in a solo rpg by having the player write after action reports.
All that said, I do think the scenario presented is unfortunately a little bland. I feel like the sweet spots for this sort of thing are either offering broad narrative strokes or offering a lot of choices. The Hold the Point scenario doesn't do either, so it's a lot of dice rolling without feeling dynamic. I wonder if there is an opportunity to abstract combat into fewer rolls to move things along. Hopefully this is only an issue with the first scenario and there will be opportunities to add more dynamic play into the TBA ones.
Overall, love the concept, love the setting hints, and would love to see continued development.
This is an awesome project. Incredibly ambitious to put together a two phase game in the time limit and it seems like it will work well. I really like the idea of following cadets as they go to war and I don't think I've seen it done before. Also really enjoyed the illustrations you were able to source.
If I manage to get it to a table, I'll be sure to let you know how it plays. From reading over the rules I think it should run pretty smoothly. The moves may need a bit more fleshing out, but I'll have to see how they work at the table. I also think it would be neat if there were a table for generating academy crises in the same way there's a mission generation table.
