"Mecha, giant robotic weapons of war, fly among the stars and stride across battlefields controlled by pilots - brave, terrified, determined, desperate - who will write the history books with beam fire and missile barrages.

That is not your role.

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.

In reality the supplies are never as plentiful as they should be, the allies not as dependable. You, better than anyone else, know how fragile a Mecha can be. You know that the Pilot is not yet a legend, but an all-too fallible human being. You’ll do the best you can, it’s your job after all, but you’re all too aware how likely it is that when it comes to this weapon of war you’ll be...

The Cog That Remains."

The Cog That Remains is a Wretched & Alone game of a mecha mechanic and their (probably doomed) attempt to keep their machine intact and its pilot alive. Written for National Game Design Month 2024, this version of the game is the ash can version. It is fully functional, already has a cover from J.J. Ariosa, and has been playtested and proofread. It will likely receive more testing and tweaks, hence the sale price. A print version is also in the works!

This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

THE WRETCHED™ is a trademark of Chris Bissette. The Wretched and Alone logo is © Chris Bissette, and is used with permission.

You can check out the first actual play from The Screaming Wyvern (there's a sequel!) right here: