A PocketQuest ’23 Project I Actually Managed To Finish (Sort Of)
Well, I managed to not bring shame upon my house. I got a game completed for the “Space” PocketQuest game jam over at DriveThruRPG.
Tales from the Cockpit is about a Mecha, a giant humanoid robot controlled by a Pilot and designed as a weapon of war. Specifically, it’s about a prototype mecha – if not the first functioning one ever built ever, at least the first one its creators built.
They didn’t hold back on the budget.
Your Mecha can be as sentient as you’d like it to be. It may be ‘just’ a machine, it may have a learning computer that gradually improves, or it may have a fully-aware artificial intelligence. Whatever you decide, the mecha should still have character that allows you to tell an engaging story. In any case, its creators didn’t give it the ability to act on its own. For that, you’ll need a Pilot.
I based TftC on the Lost & Found SRD, particularly Bucket of Bolts. The main ‘character’ is the mecha itself. Play proceeds as the mecha comes into the possession of various Pilots. Perhaps its first Pilot will be an inexperienced, idealistic, and frighteningly skilled Young Civilian? Perhaps instead it will be a desperate, daring, and devious Hijacker? Each Pilot will provide their own questions and prompts, fly the mecha through glorious victories or inauspicious defeats, and then leave it behind – one way or another. As time passes the endless waltz of giant robot warfare will dance on, and the mecha will fall to rust and ruin. Where will it wind up in the end?
The subtitle for this newsletter says (Sort Of) because so far it’s the ashcan/PocketQuest edition of the game. It’s playable, but linearly so – a game of TftC will see a minimum of six Pilots, and six Pilots there are, so it’s less about which Pilots you pick than in what order you pick them. Outside of the mad scramble to meet a deadline, I’ll be able to almost double the number of Pilots, events, and moments in history.
And hey, maybe even get an artist and a layout person in here (although I do quite like the little mecha assets I got from Penflower).
Point is, the game is currently $3.50, since I figure the final product will be $9.00. Everyone who gets it now will get the completed version and all its many doodads for no extra cost. And if you’ve read this far, here’s a way to get it even cheaper. Thanks for following! If you do get it, let me know what you think – a rating and a review would be particularly helpful.
As is always the way of these things, I’m kind of supposed to put this project aside and let it rest on its laurels for a bit, but I can already feel the momentum carrying me along, so we’ll see how it goes.
The Extras
Something Cool To Check Out
Well obviously there are all of the other PocketQuest 2023 offerings! There are a whopping 94 of them aside from TftC. A large number of those, a little more than half I think, are from people who have managed to create their first game ever!
Tales from the Cockpit and A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase both need to continue their journey towards a more complete version, I’m trying to get back more into the swing of things at CHG (I hit my minimum in June), and I always want to do more. Who knows which direction I’ll manage to make progress in? I sure don’t!
Until you catch the next Dispatch,
Seamus
Cannibal Halfling Dispatch 
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