At the beginning of March, Mark and the Lore Link Players welcomed Alex Rinehart to the stream to talk about his upcoming game, Cyberrats in Space. The game, which pulls inspiration from such things as Terminator, Voltron, Mass Effect, XCOM, and of all things, Chuck E. Cheese, drops onto Kickstarter on June 15th, and Alex gave the team a preview of what was coming! Over the course of two hours, Alex ran Mark, Mike, and Twenty through a heist using giant mechs at an interstellar version of Ikea. These mechs had names like Boom Wagon, Frog, and Beatbox, were as great and weird as they sound, and rampaging through an Ikea was as amazing as it sounds, as well!
After everything wrapped, I invited the players to share their thoughts over on Bluesky. Twenty “… had so much fun playing a mech pilot; I had never considered mech games before (I don’t even play them in video game form)! The game is well-written and the visual style is *on point*.” Mark had to roll with a pun, saying “I had a (pun intended) blast with Cyberrats in Space. Fast, explosive combat that provides great moments for every player. And that’s combined with a unique X-COM-esque mission management system that challenges players. And all of this with heavy GM support, making it quick and easy to run!” Looking back at my notes, there was one thing that stuck out to me. That one thing? Juggler, the clown mech.
As I was prepping this post, I reached out to Alex to see if there was anything he wanted to talk about concerning the stream. When I asked if he showed off Cyberrats in Space as well as he could have, he replied “We didn’t cover every mechanic in the game (it’s a big game and a short stream!), but we hit most of the major beats, and showed off how to collaborate with a section of our most popular mechs. I can’t remember if supermechs (joining multiple together in a Voltron sort of way) was featured, and we didn’t get into basebuilding or upgrading, but the core mechanics, the decision space, and the goal-oriented missions were all shown off elegantly.” When it came to anything he might have forgotten, he continued, “Cyberrats in Space is standalone, but compatible with previous Cyberrats games. It’s got mechs, basebuilding, XCOM-inspired tactics, giant rat swarms (that’s you!), revenge, relationships, and giant, revered beetle queens. What more could you want?” Concerning the Kickstarter, which actually drops the day this blog post drops, he wanted me to make sure everyone knew “It will feature more than 10 guest writers, as well as reward tiers to:
- Name an enemy after your rival
- Name an ally after yourself
- Name the ship after a beloved pet (or, in a stroke of bold ego, yourself)
- Insert your OC into two-page spread by our very own Boog
- Supplant my wife and get the book dedicated to you, a fervent and deserving patron
- Force me to run the game for you and your four closest friends”
The Kickstarter kicks off on Monday, June 15th. Alex has been posting a lot of information, as well as game art by Boog, over on his Bluesky account. I think it’s something a lot of people will enjoy, so I strongly encourage everyone to check out the video, either here or on our YouTube page, and then go back the Kickstarter before it ends!
The team wishes to send another huge thanks to Alex for taking the time to show our team a game that contains a clown-based mech! Please, take a look at his link page to check out his other games, and find where you can follow him online.