Cogs and Cockpits - Solitary Mecha Games Together in ZineTopia
A Lost & Found print run finds enough support to try for another!
Mecha stride upon the battlefields of history, carrying out their pilots’ will and changing the world.
You are one of them.
Originally written as part of the 2023 PocketQuest game jam over on DriveThruRPG, Tales from the Cockpit is a Lost & Found game about a giant robot, its many pilots, and the passage of time. Getting to a playable state over the course of the jam, Tales has since been refined, gotten more options to choose from, and picked a fight with layout demons: as a result, it is currently part of ZineTopia on BackerKit, trying to fund a full print run!
After choosing some details about your Mecha, you'll pick your first Pilot - while you are the machine, this is the character who guides you into battle and the history books, changing you through your mutual experiences. You'll be prompted to provide some details about them, and then you'll pick an event that occurred during your time together. Some of them will be good, some of them will be bad, but all of them will ask you questions about what happened and how it affected you. Eventually, that first Pilot will stop piloting you - you get to detail the why and the how of it - and you remain behind, alone.
The player will then Rest by picking an option for how much time passes between Pilots in-game, setting a real-world timer, and closing their eyes, putting them in the space of the world moving around them without being able to act on it. At first the lengths of time, in and out of game, will be relatively short. As the game progresses, however, the time between Pilots will increase and your options for Resting will also involve events. Some will be what happens to you the Mecha as time passes, and others will be about the world changing around you. Once the Rest is resolved, you pick another Pilot, and repeat the cycle.
The game proceeds through three Acts, with two pilots each featuring in Acts I and II and the end of Act III being triggered by how long you have Rested so far. Once that threshold has been reached the next Pilot will be your last, and the last options you choose will determine your final resting place and the end of your Tale.
Like many Lost & Found games, that doesn't necessarily have to be the end. After all, you've just told the story of your giant robot and left it behind, so perhaps a player character in another game might stumble upon it...
The campaign's funding goal of $400 has already been reached, which means that all backers are going to be getting their game(s) and a print run will be sent off to convention booth and game/book store shelves! However, the degree of the campaign's success has outstripped the limits of the print run, as it can only be so big. So, since we're here funding giant robot games anyways the campaign has added a stretch goal: funding a print run for The Cog That Remains.
You are the chief mechanic. It is your job to repair, maintain, and maybe even upgrade a Mecha in-between missions. In doing so, you keep the Mecha in the fight. In doing so, you keep the Pilot alive.
At least, that’s the goal.
The Cog That Remains is a Wretched & Alone game of a mecha mechanic and their (probably doomed) efforts to keep their machine intact and its pilot alive. A tumbling block tower represents your mecha and what shape it is in. A deck of cards will help to determine what's happening in the story and what you'll have to deal with, with each suit covering one aspect of the challenges you're facing: the mecha itself, its pilot, the military that are nominally your allies, and the enemy that are trying to shoot your machine down. With a lot of luck and a few tricks you might just see the end of the war, but the odds aren't good - if the tower comes down or something else breaks the wrong way your machine will be destroyed and the pilot slain, and you'll be left to pick up the pieces.
With the PDF version of The Cog That Remains already an add-on, if the campaign reaches its new, one, and only stretch goal then every backer at every pledge level will receive a coupon for a print-on-demand softcover copy (which will put the total for a PDF+PoD bundle at the same cost as the PDF+Print option for Tales). A PDF+Print add-on for The Cog That Remains will also be added, for those who don't want an extra step.
Two mecha games that offer a different perspective on the genre, with one already destined to appear on store shelves thanks to backer support, and in the bargain there are more games available as digital add-ons: stranded mecha pilots, madcap heists, cyberpunk dream hackers, and fleeing starships! Give it a look, and let's see what Tales we can tell.
The Tales from the Cockpit Print Run campaign will be live on BackerKit for the duration of ZineTopia, ending February 27, 2026 at 4:00 PM EST.
If you're interested in more ZineTopia, more giant robots, and especially both I'd like to point you to some projects from other creators: Screaming Metal: Vector Soul, a solo+ game about toxic lesbians piloting living machines for exorbitant amounts of money so they can live lavish lifestyles before being torn to shreds by the poisonous arms of hyperspace, and Myriad Inverse, a Lancer campaign telling the story of how one loose end ruins everything for everyone.
