AUGUST 2025

As some may have noticed, I was on a roll with uploading a weekly video on my youtube channel when that suddenly stopped in the middle of the month. I go into more detail as to why that is on the channel itself, but the TLDR is that the videos weren’t getting enough views to warrant the time and energy to sustain them, especially when I have other things I’m more interested in.

That being of course, game design! While playing Mecha Break I was also playing a mobile game called Mecharashi. It’s the modern Front Mission sequel that Square Enix refuses to make, and as a mobile game it’s damn fun and as a Front Mission game, it might be the best in the series; the closest I’ve ever gotten to playing my dream mecha SRPG.

But yet, the fact that it was so close yet still fumbles in several critical areas just bothers my brain like a rash in a spot I can’t scratch. I could not stop thinking about the ways to make the game better and thus bring it closer to the peak mecha game I would want to play, and all that pent up energy and frustration manifested in a creative manic episode where I dug up another project I put on hold.

See, I love Battletech and play it weekly with a group at Rochester. I only play Alpha Strike cuz classic is way too crunchy for me, and when I first started playing I started drafting my own mecha war game that was meant to streamline Battletech’s systems to make it more beginner friendly, while still retaining some of the key aspects about the game that Alphastrike doesn’t do. (Losing individual body parts, multiple damage types that add texture to the attacks, etc.) while also having a bigger emphasis on customizing your machines.

My biggest hangup on the process was that I couldn’t figure out how to integrate unique pilot abilities to the system, and I wanted pilots to be another puzzle piece players could toggle with when building their mechs, but I was stumped on how to do that, so after I built everything and did a handful of tests, I shelved the thing so I could focus on the Zelda RPG.

Now, with all of the inspiration from Mecharashi, I was finally able to figure out pilot abilities, as well as a slew of other ideas to add texture to the combat. All these ideas, revisions & further streamlining ended up crafting a game that’s no longer Battletech for babies, and instead made it closer to Front Mission the board game. Which I was ultimately fine with cuz the game is fun. Like, really fucking fun. Way more so than the previous iteration. I get excited to do personal play-tests for this game, and that’s generally a sign you got something great in your hands.

So I’ve been hyper-fixated on this project for the past couple of weeks. In that time I completed the MVP of this game which ended up being an instruction book that’s 30 pages long (The actual rules are only 7 pages long.) 9 Maps, 6 different game modes, 12 weapons and 30 parts. (I’m not even going to get into the pilots which is a whole spread of numbers in itself.)

I even started to scribble down ideas for expansions cuz I can’t help myself, but I feel the creative mania starting to cool down now that most of the development is actually done, and all that’s left is more private play-tests and trying to figure out how to get public play-tests done, which has consistently been my biggest obstacle for all my games so far.

But I’m gonna re-steer my efforts and priorities back on the Zelda RPG. My goal is to try and get it done before the end of the month. Will that actually happen? I don’t know for sure, I’m definitely gonna try my best, but the latest the game will be done is the end of November. I really don’t want it to go any further out than September though cuz once October rolls around the gaming media is going to be choking on Holiday releases, making it extremely difficult for eyes to get on the project.

As for this Mech war-game I’ve been talking about, the next time you’ll hear about it is when I have a completed product ready to show. That could be in a few months, or it could be next year. Could be never again if play-tests show that people just aren’t into it. Game dev be like that. I certainly hope not though cuz I’ve fallen in love with this game and I’m excited to get more eyes on it, so for now I’m determined to bring it to market once I’m done with the Zelda RPG.

That’s all for now, gotta go pick up my tiny human from the tiny human holding center.

~A very tired yet determined Eli.