Rig is by Not Writing Games, a variant of the Rune system by Gila RPG’s. You can join the Patreon for Not Writing Games and get RIG (along with all of his other games) for just £1 – definitely worth it. If you’ve played Into the Breach, you’ll know what kind of game this is.
The premise is a descent through to the core of a dead Earth, in a salvaged mech amongst the ruins of the past. Gameplay-wise, you progress through a series of procedurally generated encounters trying to reach “the Core” – obtaining snippets of lore, salvaging equipment and parts, ammo refills and useful detritus on your journey.
Encounters are generated through a deck of playing cards, drawing for the map, threat and a special condition for that encounter. When you have drawn all the cards without either dying or returning to your spacecraft you have ‘completed’ a level. There are three levels, each with unique deck references for the encounters.
Drawing a face card pits you against one of the games bosses, and successfully beating them has you discard all of those face cards for that level, effectively reducing the deck size until you move on to the next level.
Encounters have temporary special rules, permanent buffs and equipment changes, etc. and it’s unlikely you’ll face the same match twice unless you die, at which point the encounter stays there until you beat it.
There are some really thematic encounters:
My second encounter was a special event: Deleted Layer – this involves a reality warping shift through different terrain draws – your goal is to sprint to any voids on the map to survive the transition to the next map without taking damage.
“Incoming firmament collision, dark matter event, or Grip malfunction. Please evacuate this layer immediately. Message repeats. Please leave now or risk ontological complications.”
The originator of the system used here, Rune, has a direct narrative element with authored ‘realms’, while Rig leverages the generative nature the card draw to create encounters. As a result the storyline is driven primarily through flavor text for items, survivors and enemies – which works well for a combat and survival oriented game like this.
I have found it a compelling game and very enjoyable. For a total cost of about £3 including the resin and filament for printing the figures and game board, an absolutely cracking way to spend a couple of hours.
Wake up, Pilot!
STL FILES
I have found the various STL files I used for my printed version of Rig, they are listed below:
- Terrain
- GreebleCity for the buildings: https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=greeblecity+ruins&page=1
- GarageBay9 for the science/tech structures: https://www.thingiverse.com/garagebay9/designs
- Hazard token from here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3334076 for dangerous terrain
- The actual mech grid is from here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1396560
- Figures
- Cyclops Milita from DutchMogul as ‘my’ Rig: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1373869
- Unknown Contact STL from here for enemy rigs and vehicles: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4844737
William's Wargames 
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