Mechanics-only playtest build. Theme and flavor are minimal in this version and will be layered on later. This alpha uses a deliberately reduced set of cards; the final version will ship a complete spread (every Form × Type × Power combination), so anything that feels thin here — a type you can't find, a combo you can't complete — is a limitation of the alpha deck, not the design. See Appendix: The Full Spread at the end.
You're cadets in your final semester at the Academy, paired up as Mech Lab Partners on one shared build station. Together you share one job: build a single giant mech from scavenged parts and beat the kaiju bearing down on the city. You build together and you fight together — the whole table wins or loses as one.
But every partner is also chasing their own Independent Study, a personal project only they can see. Complete it and you're a step closer to graduating Valedictorian — and the rank of Captain that comes with it, straight out of the Academy. Glory doesn't always require the team to win. The game is cooperative on the surface and quietly competitive underneath.
A game runs in two rounds: Assembly (build the mech against a ticking countdown) and Battle (the finished mech fights the kaiju, resolving largely on its own). Then you check Independent Studies.
A mech is built from five body slots: 1 Legs, 1 Torso, 2 Arms, 1 Head. Each Part-Type governs one battle function:
| Part-Type | Function in Battle |
|---|---|
| Legs | Turn order / initiative |
| Torso | Armor (soaks damage) + hit points |
| Arms | Weapon slots — deal damage equal to their Power |
| Head | Accuracy / critical hits + rebuild support |
Every Part card belongs to one Form. Form governs a mech's overall combat character and is what kaiju are weak or resistant to.
| Form | Skill Bucket |
|---|---|
| Beast | Speed |
| Mechsuit | Strength |
| Vehicle | Durability |
| Clockwork | Precision |
| Ghost-Crystal | Support |
Every Part card carries a Combat Type — its elemental damage category. Each Type is shown at a glance via the card's Color. Kaiju have type weaknesses and resistances too.
| Combat Type | Color (reference) |
|---|---|
| Projectile | Red |
| Energy / Electric | Blue |
| Melee | Yellow |
| Magic / Psychic | Green |
| Sonic | Orange |
Arm cards carry a Power value of 1, 2, or 3 — this is the weapon damage that Arm deals in battle. Low Power is common, high Power is rare.
Assembly is the heart of the game: build the shared mech before the kaiju arrives, while quietly steering it toward your Independent Study.
At the very start of Assembly, note the lesson Form for this game. (In the full game this is rolled; for the alpha, draw the top Body card of the draw pile, note its Form as the lesson, then shuffle it back.)
If the finished mech has 3 or more parts of the lesson Form, the lesson "takes" — and each matching part gains a +1 bonus to its effect in battle. Below 3 matching parts, there's no bonus at all; at 3+, every matching part is boosted:
| Matching part | Lesson bonus |
|---|---|
| Legs | +1 to turn order / evasion |
| Torso | +1 HP |
| Arms | +1 damage (each matching Arm) |
| Head | +1 to accuracy / crit |
So a mech with 3 matching parts gets three +1s (wherever those parts are); a full 5-of-5 mech gets five. The bonus lands on whichever slots match, which naturally rewards matching your Arms (offense) over more situational slots.
Players take turns around the table. On your turn you may do any or all of the following, in any order:
At the start of your next turn, refill your hand back to 5 — but only if you played at least one body card on your previous turn. If you passed (or only used the Arms market), you do not refill. This is the core gamble: hold out for a better card and risk falling behind, or commit and refill.
The build decks are not reshuffled. When the draw pile empties, players refill as much as it can give and then play from the hands they hold. When the Arms pool empties, the market is no longer refilled. Running low is real pressure — a late, sloppy game may leave the mech with gaps (empty slots).
After every player has taken one turn, the round ends. Three things happen, in order:
Assembly ends when the countdown reaches zero (all Trait cards flipped). The mech locks as-is — any empty slot is a gap, and gaps hurt in battle.
Finishing early (campaign/semester mode only): in standalone play the countdown always runs to zero. In a campaign, if the group agrees they may stop Assembly before the countdown ends — any still-face-down Trait cards are discarded unapplied, a weaker kaiju as the reward for a confident build. It is uncapped (deny any number of remaining Traits) and is deliberately a campaign-only lever, kept out of the standalone game because it proved too strong there (Alpha 2.2 tuning).
The kaiju starts 'approaching' — you know only its name and countdown length. As the countdown ticks each round, you flip Trait cards, learning more about the threat as it nears.
Each Trait card is a 'field report' that adds one strength AND one weakness to the kaiju, permanently, for the rest of the game. They're generic — they attach to whatever kaiju is in play. Because every Trait is double-edged, letting the countdown run always cuts both ways.
The kaiju card's back holds only the countdown, read once at setup to lay out the Trait track. When Assembly ends and Battle begins, flip the kaiju to its full stat side — everything else was printed on the front all along, revealed together in that single flip:
Battle resolves the finished mech against the kaiju. It's largely automatic — you built your fate in Assembly; now you watch it play out (and, in campaigns, spend interventions).
While the Torso is intact, it soaks Armor off every incoming attack, mech-wide (alpha value: 2, fully — an attack reduced to 0 or below does nothing). While the Torso is a gap or destroyed, there is no Armor and all incoming damage is doubled. The Torso is the mech's defensive keystone.
Any empty or destroyed slot is actively bad. A destroyed part behaves exactly like a gap for the rest of the battle:
| Missing/destroyed slot | Effect |
|---|---|
| Legs | The kaiju always acts first (Mech Speed 0) |
| Torso | No Armor, and the mech takes double damage |
| Head | −1 damage per Arm, and no critical hits |
| Arms | Fewer weapons; if both are gone the mech rebuilds or throws the wimpy punch (below) |
At the start of each round, compare Mech Speed to the kaiju's Speed. The higher acts first; the mech wins ties. Mech Speed: 2 base, +1 Beast Legs, +1 lesson-matched Legs; no Legs = 0. (Some kaiju debuffs can force the mech to act first regardless.) Alpha kaiju Speeds: Gorgadon 2, Cinderwyrm 4, Lumenyx 3, Thornmaw 2, Trivex 4.
A kaiju no longer targets one fixed part and whiffs once it's gone. Each has a priority list; its attack lands on the first intact part down that list (a two-attack kaiju hits the two most-intact parts). No kaiju leads with the Arms except Thornmaw (the disarmer), so a mech keeps its weapons through most of a fight. Incoming damage is reduced by Armor (or doubled if the Torso is gone), then applied.
Each working Arm deals its Power, modified by Form (+1/−1) then Type (×2 / ×0.5, round down, min 1 if resisted). If both Arms share a Power tier they combo (+1 total). Then each Arm that dealt damage rolls the d20 for a crit.
Each damaging Arm rolls a d20 and crits — doubling that Arm's damage — if the roll ≤ the Head's Accuracy. Accuracy is 1 base (5%), +1 if the Head is Clockwork, +1 if the lesson matched on the Head (up to 3 / 15%). No Head, or a crit-immune kaiju, means no crit. (Each Arm card carries flavor for its normal attack and its crit; the crit effect is mechanically uniform — double that Arm's damage.)
If both Arms are gaps or destroyed, the mech is never helpless — it throws a wimpy punch: 1 flat damage. The punch is colorless and formless — no Type or Form multipliers, no combo, no crit, and none of the kaiju's per-Arm bonus damage (it isn't an Arm). With no Head to aim it, the punch misses 1 time in 3. A rebuild still takes the whole turn, so a disarmed group chooses each round: rebuild a weapon, or throw the punch (often the right call to finish a nearly-dead kaiju).
Each round: 1. determine initiative; 2. the faster side acts (kaiju attacks per its priority list, applying Armor / gap penalties — or the mech fires, or throws the wimpy punch if armless); 3. the other side acts; 4. end-of-round effects (regen, etc.); 5. check for a result.
On the mech's turn the group may — as a group decision — rebuild any one part instead of firing. It costs the mech its entire offensive turn (the mech does not fire that round).
When the battle ends:
Multiple players can complete their Independent Study in the same game — they don't compete for a single slot. In a standalone game, completing yours simply makes you the 'star of the class' for that session. In a campaign, it's worth real points toward the Academy Grading Rubric and earns an intervention (Sections 9–10).
Each Mech Lab Partner has spent their whole time at the Academy honing one Pilot Specialty. Its power is an intervention — a once-per-game effect with two possible uses. You pick one use; the intervention is single-use.
When available (campaign), the two uses are:
| Specialty | Assembly Use | Battle Use (cost) |
|---|---|---|
| Tactician | Peek at the next face-down Trait card | Redirect all this round's damage to one part (that part takes it amplified) |
| Brawler | Free extra Arm place/replace (still ends your turn) | All weapons fire at max Power this round (mech defense drops to 0 next hit) |
| Ace | Draw 2 extra body cards, keep any | Guaranteed crit / ignore kaiju resistance (accuracy halved next round) |
| Medic | Reposition a placed card to another empty slot of the same type | Restore a destroyed part (a healthy part is destroyed instead) |
| Saboteur | Force a player to reveal their hand | Null the kaiju's next attack (kaiju gains a permanent buff after) |
Across multiple games, cadets earn grades under the Academy Grading Rubric; cumulative GPA crowns the Valedictorian — graduating top of the class earns the rank of Captain, straight out of the Academy. Scoring is mostly additive and upbeat — a bad night rarely knocks you out of the race.
| Outcome | GPA |
|---|---|
| Kaiju defeated (win) | C (2.0) |
| Loss, kaiju under 25% HP left | D+ (1.3) |
| Loss, kaiju 25–50% HP left | D (1.0) |
| Loss, kaiju 50–75% HP left | D– (0.7) |
| Loss, kaiju over 75% HP left | F (0.0) |
A game's score = base + extra credit + personal honors, and can exceed 4.0 in a great game (A+ = 4.3 and up). Season score is your average across games played.
Season length / number of games; valedictorian tie-breakers; persistent legacy unlocks (including a campaign-only ability for Tactician/Saboteur to flip a kaiju's card early, revealing all its stats — including the conditional debuff — before arrival).
This alpha ships a reduced deck. The final game is intended to include a complete spread of cards — every combination — so no Type or Form is ever scarce by accident:
| Part-Type | Alpha count | Final (full spread) |
|---|---|---|
| Legs | 15 | 25 (every Form × Type) |
| Torso | 15 | 25 (every Form × Type) |
| Head | 15 | 25 (every Form × Type) |
| Arms | 25 | 75 (every Form × Type × Power) |
| Total | 70 | 150 |
Every alpha card is a faithful subset of the final spread, so scaling up only ever means adding cards, never changing existing ones. If during a playtest a specific Type or Form feels hard to find, that's the reduced alpha deck at work. Kaiju, Traits, Independent Studies, and Specialties are likewise expected to grow in the final release.