Girl Frame confidently stomps its way into a niche mecha genre

Mechsploitation is a sci-fi genre so niche, so specific in its community that I know for a fact that the vast majority of readers will fit into one of two categories. Either you will wonder what the heck mechsploitation is, or you’re a transgender lesbian. For the uninitiated, mechsploitation uses the tropes and trappings of mecha fiction to explore issues of dehumanization and oppression — which are foundational to the mecha genre, anyway — such as gender, sexuality, BDSM and kink, abuse, and trauma. Kallidora Rho’s WARHOUND is inarguably the cornerstone of the genre, defining the archetypes of Hound and Handler — a mecha pilot and her dispatcher/commander/caretaker — and their twisted, abusive relationship. In the time since WARHOUND’s 2023 release, mechsploitation has grown into a vibrant community of largely transfeminine authors, established and otherwise, who have released hundreds of works across AO3 and other platforms.

Girl Frame, by Isabelle Ruebsaat, is a Powered by the Apocalypse-based RPG (specifically the Apocalypse Keys variant) that enables play in the mechsploitation genre, and has been an instant success. When I spoke to Ruebsaat in November, just a few weeks after Girl Frame’s ashcan release, it had sold over 1,500 copies and grossed $18,000. To give some context, Ruebsaat was shocked when she hit 80 sales. Full disclosure: I bought one of those 1,500 copies as soon as the game showed up on my radar, which is probably unsurprising to our long-time readers. Trans lesbians and mecha? Totally my thing. However, I have a much more complex relationship with the mechsploitation genre. WARHOUND is a superb book that I realised was very much not for me, instead preferring my traumatic lesbian mecha fiction in the form of Maria Ying’s Hades Calculus.

I say this not to go on a literary critique tangent, but to highlight that even if the ingredients are right, and they’re expertly crafted, that the result may still not be to one’s taste. Happily, Girl Frame grabbed me immediately and swiftly became one of my favorite PbtA games, and the only one that I’ve done a good job of running.