Apocalypse Frame (Part 1)

War-Frames

Apocalypse Frame is a game by Binary. Game material and content is reproduced here for review purposes and is owned by Binary Star Games.

1. Every Individual Component Is The Best

In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we do not find bad or good useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgement that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical term, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgement. )

Ludo

Well, what can I say here? Apocalypse Frame is all gears and servos, a workhorse presentation without whistles and bells. This serves it well in focusing what is about, conveying purpose without distractions, and a minimalist but clean layout that makes it easy to flip through. It is a neat and organized, just like what you want from a toolbox; never once I struggled to find something.

Excellent use of resources and production value. At the right scale for intense mech-combat, from bite-sized games to short campaigns.

Brad

You could disassemble your copy of Apocalypse Frame, throw it in a trash-bag, bury it in a swamp, dig it up in years and still have a functional and ready-to-play layout. This book is designed to be neat and organized, with information exactly where you want and need it. It’s a fantastic table reference and true proof that less is more.

2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At

Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly breakdown, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.

Lucrécia

It is a game about mech pilots atop big stompy robots, so expect extreme violent atop war-machines. Now, mech games have a… reputation. They going/need to have a lot of finnicky parts, need a digital interface to even be played, and have a lot of moving parts that you need to understand.

Apocalypse Frame, however, is quite approachable, without compromising the appeal of the aspects of mech warfare. It is no more complex than your standard playbook or class-based TTRPG, offering role-tailored warmachines that you can easily swap layouts every mission.

However, the pilots themselves need extra work to develop. The frames they ride into battle may as well be an extension of their bodies; you make them people by what drives them to fight, how they manage to be exalted among their peers to ride these powerful and demanding machines, and all the connections they create. This is not to say that Apocalypse Frame is not interested in pilots — quite the opposite, having extensive systems establishing who they are. It is just that none of those things directly affect shooting¹.

The game does rely a lot on tags, and they lack punchy intuitive names whose relations to mechanics is immediately obvious. It may take some effort to get them to stick with your brain, so you would do well to keep a reference sheet for tags at hand.

Apocalypse Frame makes a remarkable effort to tie safety to the game setup and establishment.

You also gonna need to roll out hex maps. I’m sorry.

Brad

You are going to be playing a story of violent resistance and conflict while piloting several story-tall death machines. You should expect the violence inherent in it, but the system has a wonderfully in-built system to make sure that your players are aware and able to set a comfort level for the conflict. Apocalypse Frame bucks the trend and is an easy-to-pick-up-and-play Mech TTRPG, with a simple-to-learn system.

The Pilots are secondary to the mech, and to their actions as warriors of the mecha. This might be a bit of a difficulty depending on the group, but mine didn’t mind. In addition, get ready to bust out the hex maps and the markers, we are going back to the board.

3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About

Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and creates a common space for creation.

Ludo

Apocalypse Frame does not waste breath talking about itself before handing you the keys to the warmachines. An alien terraforming plague, the Infection, caused the death of the old world. A fascist military junta took over the remains, creating mechs and naming themselves the Republic. At some point a mech factory seized the mechs of production and the production of mechs and became the Collective vanguard shooting back at the Republic. You are an Ace, an elite pilot for the Collective, doing missions to one of its various internal factions.

Brad

You are a soldier, a hero of the Collective! You are fighting for freedom from the grim tyranny of the Republic, The Collective having been born after seizing control of a Frame (the settings preferred term for mech). The Republic emerged in the years after a terrifying terraforming plague took hold on earth and led to a strange and violent new world coming into place. You are one of the Aces, the Collective’s elite troops, and you will make a difference.

4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About

What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists on a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.

Lucrécia

Apocalypse Frame is a mecha-themed looter shooter TTRPG. It uses the assumptions of that genre — specially how they have been translated to the action bits of cooperative collaborative storytelling by the LUMEN engine — to bring in the power, mass and inertia in as simple and fulfilling as possible. A game where mechs are about the tyranny of flesh, the brutality and inhumanity of war and how it renders everyone to their material and their skill wielding it for killing, or the state of people rendered non-people warmachines finding identity through battle piloting other depersonalized warmachines which are valued more than them because of how expensive they are, this is not. This is about how fun shooting fascists in your mecha is. A lot.

But there has to be a lot more, right? After all, you got to this point with another game you loved a lot but kinda did not have much to do a critic about it². So, get on what it, what is Apocalypse Frame.

Why, historical materialism. And spoilers for part 2: it is literally its engine. Apocalypse Frame is about what actually needs for a struggle for turn, for a mech to move, for a dedicated ace pilot workforce to exist. When you make your pilot, you position yourself in an ongoing struggle, how you stand out, and the obligations that you have to the Divisions coordinating the fight against the Republic or the many workers of the Collective. They not only have a name and face, they are what makes your pilot more than shifting stats and their mech.

Apocalypse Frame is about machines, how they come together and how they fall apart. And this one kills fascists.

Brad

Apocalypse Frame is about Unity, and it’s built into both the basic squad based mechanics and the larger campaign framework. The Collectives military is split into three groups, The Arrow, The Sword and The Shield. These groups each have a different focus and every time you design a mission, you are supposed to have each group present one, and even design two more quirky squads of NPC Aces to take the ones your players pass on.

You are not supposed to celebrate any failures though, every single failure drags you towards crisis, and in fact, your player characters are expected to immediately intervene in any crisis. You gain rewards for helping The Collectives various arms, so there is nothing but reward for helping and that drives home the theme you’ll quickly realize with a squad.

A single Ace is dangerous, a squad of Aces is a murderous ballet, turning enemies into red mist and broken mechs. The only way we can win in the future is to fight as a unit, to work together, and most important, to share the means to secure freedom.

1. And the game is better for it.

2. FIST