SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Satah, and my goal is to showcase multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. You can support the show financially at patreon.com/foliopod, or join as a free member to get access to the bonus podcast feed. This month, patrons voted for me to stream My Welcomed Guest, a game by Dawn Bear Games about bargaining your way out of the fey world. Sign up at any paid tier now to see the VOD of that before its public release next month.
This is episode one of our games of Live. Love. Die. Remember., a game about "mechs falling in love with their pilots, reliving their memories of love before the end, and the cost of victory" by Ray Cox. It is a product of 2019's emotional mecha jam, and it… [Laughing] uh, blows that concept out of the water? Uh– apologies for something that feels like, close to clickbait somehow– it is true, but it still feels like something I would put in the YouTube video title to sort of exaggerate its presence in the game– but it- but! You will- you will literally hear one of the guests cry a little. So.
Speaking of guests! The other yearning artificial intelligences embodied by a hunk of steel joining me are Brianna Price and Dora Rogers. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about them and some stuff that they've got going on at the break.
In Live. Love. Die. Remember. you play a sapient mech who is in love with their pilot, recalling key moments of your relationship before you decide the fate of your final battle. We're going to get started by setting up the big picture circumstances that lead up to that battle.
GAME: SET-UP
SATAH: So.
DEE: Okay, let's go. Mechs, mechs, mechs.
BRIANNA: Hi, folks! Um, my name is Brianna. I'm going to be playing Live. Love. Die. Remember. for Folio.
DEE: So I've got Live. Love. Die. Remember. up.
SATAH: Today I'm going to be playing through Live. Love. Die. Remember. which is a game from the emotional mecha jam a few years ago. Shout out to that jam for bringing, like, truly an absurd number of cool games into existence.
DEE: I play a lot of games journal-style. Well– because I'm extra, I will basically write full stories about whatever's going on, either in the form of in-character journal entries or sometimes just sort of like a prose, you know, account of what's happening to my character. For this, since I'm specifically creating audio recording, I plan on mostly doing that, but I wanted to have a doc up to keep notes.
I've got a physical die because those can be fun sometimes, although I might also use dice rollers online, which is actually what I most often do.
Um, and I'm good to go! I also have coffee, so I'm all set.
SATAH: This game can be played with multiple people. It's described as I believe one to four players. Obviously… gonna be sticking with one for this particular podcast. But if it intrigues you but you're looking for more of a group experience, that's kind of cool.
DEE: "You'll need some dice, some scraps of paper, something to write with, something to mark your skin!" I forgot something to mark my skin. I'll get that in a moment. "I recommend permanent marker or eyeliner. Both will come off of your hand with hand sanitizer."
BRIANNA: Um, until reading this, I did not know that I was going to be marking my skin. I think it's a really cool idea for a game.
DEE: I have got black eyeliner and I'm excited.
BRIANNA: "Whenever you see a table, you can choose a random prompt, select a specific prompt, or have someone pick a prompt for you." I'll just go for 'em.
DEE: There are tables and I can choose or choose randomly. I will decide what to do in the moment for those.
SATAH: Me being me, obviously I'm going to roll.
DEE: One thing that I love about solo TTRPGs is that I think I do a lot of self-censorship in non-solo TTRPGs. Mostly in the sense of not being self-indulgent– like, it's not like I want to do really extreme stuff or anything, but I just want to be really self-indulgent sometimes and I have a lot of trouble doing that in group games. So I'm excited for that.
SATAH: So the first section is "Describe the war."
ALL: "A final battle."
BRIANNA: "A decision to make."
SATAH: "What will you sacrifice to make it through?"
DEE: "Your love?"
BRIANNA: "Your life?"
SATAH: "Or peace itself?"
BRIANNA: "Gonna take a moment to build a little bit of the world we're playing in."
DEE: "Just enough to get you started."
BRIANNA: "We want to leave plenty of room to establish things as we play out our mech's memories."
SATAH: We are going to do three questions.
BRIANNA: Cool, cool cool cool. "Go into as much detail as you like. Give things names. Come up with technobabble, or leave it for your memories. Talk about the forces that led to the conflict, your creation, and why your pilot is with you."
SATAH: Let's start off with the question, "this is a war" dot dot dot. So this is going to determine what the battle we're fighting is.
BRIANNA: "This is a war… for national prestige, over resources, for the rights to control our world, for the future of our species, with no end, or for profit." Mm. I always love to bring in cursed shit, but I actually think I want to start with something… 'cause I think it's interesting sometimes when there is a war that has some level of a good objective? So I'm going to say this is a war for– for the rights to control our world just compels me too much to go with anything else, because I think it's so flexible in terms of like… is that good, is that bad? Well, we'll see. It depends who else is trying to control the world.
SATAH: And there are six options, so I'm going to roll a D6. And I got a four, which is "for the future of our species." I… don't know if… I'm going to roll again and possibly choose another one 'cause I don't love that? I can make it work. If the die really wants me to do that, then I will.
That time I rolled a two: "over resources." I am a little more comfortable exploring that. So this is a war over resources.
DEE: Obviously this says a lot about tone. I'm like a Gundam girlie, um, which drives me in a certain direction. I feel like wars in Gundam, they're always ostensibly over very petty things, right? So they always start about resources or national prestige. But then there's always sort of like conspiracies within conspiracies or specific individuals who are fighting for something more for the future, I mean, I guess would be the most common thing.
So there's always sort of this– there's usually a turn part way through where the war that's over resources or for profit gets turned into a war for the future.
Where do I want to lean on this? Do I want… do I want a petty war or do I want a noble war? Or perhaps an ambiguously noble war? Gosh. Yeah, just where we are in 2025, I'm not feeling super optimistic about… noble wars. Just the nobility of power, I guess is a good way to put it.
So I'm going to kind of combine two here. This is a war "with no end" "for profit." Yeah, I'm going to hold off on saying more about that until I answer more questions. But this is a war with no end for profit. Because if the war doesn't end, you keep profiting!
SATAH: "What was I built for?"
BRIANNA: "To test a new weapon system, to be a perfect machine for my pilot, to kill the enemy's ace, to smash their fortress, to ensure our secrets stay hidden, to show the way forward."
DEE: Yeah… a lot of good stuff here.
BRIANNA: I think "to kill the enemy's ace" is just so good.
SATAH: Again, rolling a d6. I got a three. "To kill the enemy's ace."
BRIANNA: The idea of this mech being like almost an assassination mech, where my purpose is specifically to kill one person or one potentially other person in a mech is just– is just fascinating to me.
SATAH: So I am a mech that was constructed specifically to take out our opponent's, like, top pilot. That's great because it like… obviously, regardless, I'm playing a, uh, sentient weapon, but the specificity of that, the idea of having been designed specifically to take advantage of the weaknesses of one particular person… and probably ignoring a lot of other stuff? Like, you don't need these type of tools, uh, because this is– this is your purpose. You are only going to fight this person. Like, the equivalent of, uh– "the enemy's ace is only ever in space, like in– not on a planet– and so we're just not going to give you landing gear," that kind of thing. Probably not literally that, but there's a great opportunity to build tension in there where it's like, we didn't give you things that you might need because you don't need them, because that's not what you're designed for.
DEE: Gosh, "to be a perfect machine for my pilot" is really tempting. I'm also drawn to "to smash their fortress." The reason I like that is that, um… I like the idea of me being a blunt instrument that has taken on some sense of grace or beauty, at least for my pilot. Like this very big blocky, heavily armed thing that my pilot has nonetheless found a way to work with.
"To be a perfect machine for my pilot" is really interesting because it includes this idea of service, right? If that's what I was built for, then I'm going to be constantly trying to shape myself around this other person, which is really interesting.
But I think I'm going to go with– I'm gonna go with "to smash their fortress."
So yeah, I'm definitely this like– I'm like massive, you know? Massive, blocky, all of this armor, and bristling with weapons.
My favourite– uh, okay. So my introduction to mecha was Gundam Wing. I'm a 90s kid. And my favourite Gundam– and I don't know why– was always Heavyarms, which is this like, it's got a big square chest. It's got such garish colors. And um, it uh– one whole arm is like a gun, like a huge gatling gun, and its chest opens up and it just, like, missiles come from everywhere.
So I think that's kind of the vibe. That we've got this sort of like big square… this big square thing that's really heavily armored and, um, like, ordinance comes from everywhere.
And we're not using lasers in this setting. And… I'm going to leave myself open to sort of like beam swords or other sort of melee weapons, but but- but this is not a, this is not that kind of mech. This is a mech that is very much about like, heavy ordinance. Like when my main cannon fires, like, huge shells pop out and, like, it's– a lot of a lot of my firepower comes from missiles. Because yeah, I just- I just love the aesthetics of that, the physicality of it. So I'm this very physical being.
I think that as a mech, I'm probably considered ugly by a lot of people. I'm not graceful. I'm not this sort of like, uh, dancer, this thing built for speed and maneuverability and dogfighting and intricate duels. Uh, I am this this big blocky thing that's meant to charge in and take a lot of punishment and dish out a lot of punishment.
Out of the factory, it's like this incredibly dull, boring gray. Like, everything is gun metal gray, possibly with like black or darker gray detailing that was intended to create a sense of menace.
And I'm picturing like– I'm picturing something very specific for the mech's head that I wonder if I can convey. It's like… it- it- it sort of has horns, but not like big Viking horns? I'm sort of picturing the demon Etrigan from DC. Let me see if that matches up. Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like like little horns on top of the head and like a, yeah, Etrigan has like a big square forehead, um… and like this sort of like this just like bare ugly head. Sorry, Etrigan. And he's got like- got little horns. Um, so it's that kind of look. I'm sure they serve some functional purpose and they're ECCM or something.
SATAH: And the third question is, "When you first met your pilot, what about them seized your attention?"
DEE: As I said, this is a solo TTRPG. I get to be utterly self-indulgent here. Uh, so I'm going to be very gay for this person.
BRIANNA: "The way others swooned in their presence, the romance of their voice, their power to command the hearts of others…"
DEE: "How they rebelled, they saw the beauty in all things, the fire in their eyes, the violence in their heart, their mastery of the technical, the scars they carried with them."
SATAH: This is a ten– uh, oh, sorry. This is a nine item list. So I'm going to roll a D10 and just discard a 10. And I rolled a nine, which is "the scars they carried with them." I think that could be interesting. I am going to roll another one just to see if I find one to– like, if another one is more immediately compelling. Ha ha, 10. One more. Oh, one. "The way others swooned in their presence." Okay.
Which one of those– the thing that's fun about that is that in some ways, like, that could be exploring a very similar thing, right? It's like a- a history and a reputation.
I think given the– given the fact that I like both, I'm going to go with the first. So, uh, when I first met my pilot, I was seized by the scars they carried with them.
And the thing that that immediately makes me wonder is like… so I've been– I was built to kill the enemy's ace. The scars of my pilot could imply like, this is somebody who has been defeated by the ace before? And, you know, carries reminders of it, which could showcase, like, a personal investment. It could also speak to just having a really long history in the war? And that could mean either, like, they're being sent on this mission because they have a lot of experience, which means that they're the best and the most likely to succeed; it could also mean that they're done. They're like, this is going to be really hard and it might be the last mission, um, but I don't care because I've been doing this for too long. There are kind of a lot of ways forward with that.
Alternately, like one– uh, one other possible avenue to explore is that they have some sort of very specific scarring that indicates… an unusual history? Like, the idea that I meet this pilot and notice that they have scars on their hands that indicate that they're not a soldier or they haven't generally been a soldier, that they are a mechanic, uh, or even, even like– it isn't this, but when you see certain scars on people's hands and arms and you just know that they have worked in a professional kitchen for a very long time? The idea of seeing very specific scars and knowing, uh, like, "oh. You're being sent on this for a different reason. You're not a– those aren't- those aren't battle scars. Those are– those are wounds from whatever your day job normally is," which is, like, intriguing, right? 'Cause then it's like, why are you being sent on this mission?
That's obviously very appealing to me considering how long I talked about it. So I'm gonna– gonna think on that as I go forward.
DEE: I am again going to combine a few of these things.
"The romance of their voice." She has a very beautiful voice.
"Their power to command the hearts of others." She has a huge amount of presence. People sort of naturally defer to her. She's probably, like, fairly highly ranked in our- our- our- our military, but like- but- but- but not, like, really high, right? So I feel like pilots in the real world and like the air force, pilots are always officers. They always have a degree of rank, but they're not like colonels or generals because those people are leading large units.
So she's like a lieutenant commander. Uh… gosh, there's so much here. She's a lieutenant commander, because we use naval ranks because I think that they're sexier, and she– which is like, that's, like, a high rank for a pilot. She sort of, like, maxed out on the pilot career track. And if she gets promoted again, she'll be expected not to be actually piloting and to be in command of some sort of unit.
But, like, just everybody defers to her, right? Like the– I mean her, you know, her literal commanding officers don't, but every other pilot, even the ones who have the same rank are like, "Yeah, you're in charge. I'll follow your lead."
When she's on the sort of like maintenance deck– um, because these are, you know, I talked about like, there's this very physical, like, like shells are popping out and everything is like missiles. There's no lasers. Every- everything is very physical. So you know, there needs to be this huge deck that we launched from where there are lots of mechanics running around and there's like lifts and scaffolding and people welding things. Everything is, everything is very physical.
Everybody on that deck is, you know, it's just kind of like– like, she gets what she wants, because she gets the job done.
Also "her mastery of the technical." Um, I think that while she has this sort of romance to her, she also… she's very good at the details. And that's the thing that people miss a lot of the time that- that I know. That's sort of the side I see, that when she gets in the cockpit, she is all about, like, the fundamentals. About like targeting angles, smart tactics, uh, knowing the exact capabilities that I have and all- that all of our weapons have.
So yeah, I think that those were my first impression, right? I was like, "Wow, this woman is very impressive. She has a beautiful voice." What kind of voice does she have? She has a– she has a low voice, still feminine, but the sort of like scratchy low thing.
Yeah. And I was very impressed by all that and maybe kind of crushing, but it was when she was piloting me and I realised how good she was at this and how thoughtful she was about this, is sort of when I fell in love.
BRIANNA: "The fire in their eyes." [Contented agonised sigh] I love– I love this particular setup because I think, I think it gives you the most, like… fun room to play with– the idea of someone who has a real fury and fire in their- in their eyes. That we are on a mission to kill one particular person in the fight to control our world is… it gives an evocative vibe, while also still, I think, you know… I just like it.
SATAH: I am going to want to define a name for myself and for the pilot, but other than that, I think it's okay to just go right into the memories and kind of, like, define more from there, right? Um, figure out in the play in the- in the- in- in that area of play more, more details. Um, but I am going to come up with a name.
DEE: So let's sort of put this all together. I wonder if we're in space or if we're on the ground or both. Um, in Gundam, we would be both.
Okay. We are on a big carrier that we launch out of that has, like, a whole squadron of other mechs. And I think there may be other mechs like me that are the same model who are relatively uncommon because we're these sort of, like, heavy mechs that are for a very specific purpose.
I'm going to call us– what's like a sexy… thing… um, I also want to have a feminine name… uh… what's a good naming scheme? So you've got like… Gundam Wings, it's the zodiac. It could be like…
I'm actually going to look, uh, uh– I had a home game of beam saber a while ago and I did a ton of stuff… I like came up with a ton of naming conventions… but which of these files was it? Oh my god. I really went HAM on this.
Here we go. Okay. Factions and squads, the document I made, I had all the different brands of people who manufacture. So we've got like deities… weapons, which is smart… soldiers, like right rifleman, hoplite, dragoon… virtues! That's kind of fun, too. Yeah. Okay.
I'm going to go for a theme of the mechs on our side, at least, are named after weapons. [Mumbling while typing] Wiki melee weapons.
There's a lot of types of sword.
I'm going to be an Adze [Said like "Ads"]. Uh, I don't even know if that's how you say it. An A D Z E. "An ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an ax, but with a cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel."
Um, and I think that I am a prototype. I'm like, the first one. So I have the, uh– I have the distinction of being the… gosh, I'm defaulting to Evangelion where it's like "prototype" and "production." Is there another way to say that?
Okay. I'm the Adze-E. The E is for experimental. And then all of the other Adze would be called– [Trying out how to properly pluralise "adze"] Adze-es? Adze? Y'know– usually they're just called [Still experimenting with pluralising] Adze– Adze– Adzes– but technically they would be the Adze-P, and then like a, you know, like a zero, zero, one, that kind of thing.
Um, but I'm the Adze-E and I'm the only one, because I was the first one deployed and my pilot was the one who proved that the model was worth putting into production. Because she's sooo great. Um… [Giggling]
SATAH: Mech names, I'm very drawn to full phrases and then a short word– a short name taken out of it.
One of the words that came up when I looked at my little random generator was "obligation," which is great. And I think that could be part of the nickname, but also the thing that it made me think of was just– I was thinking about short forms and I went "Blig", which, no– but that is so close to the word Brig. I think that's going to be the pilot's name. It's like, Brig– wow, the first thing that my brain supplied for me as a last name was "cadaver." Brig Cadaver… rules is the problem. [Heavy pause] 'K. Pilot's name is Brig Cadaver. [Laughs]
DEE: Of course… of course our opponents would probably have a different naming scheme because they probably make their own mechs. 
And I think it's– I kind of like the idea, it's kind of freaky– I really liked virtues before. I feel like it's kind of freaky and like a "are we the baddies?" moment if we're named– our mechs are named for weapons and theirs are named for virtues.
So theirs are like the… [Typing] the courage, the dauntless, the wisdom…
I'm going to come back to the text for describe the war. "Go into as much detail as you like, give things names, come up with technobabble, or leave it for your memories." Okay. So I can come up with stuff as we go. The– I have gone way into detail on what things are named. I still want to name the carrier that we're on and I'm going to call that… let's name those for cities. And so the carrier that we are on is on the Fiorenza. I think that's how the Italians say Florence, right? "An obsolete name for Florence used during the middle ages." [Experimenting with different levels of Italian in the pronunciation] Fiorenza, Fiorenza, not Fiorenza. Alright. Let's follow our Italian friends.
So  Fiorenza– sorry for my terrible pronunciation– is the name of the carrier, the ship that we're on that flies us around.
Um, but I do need to figure out my pilot. Let's look at sci-fi name generators, see if this gives us anything good. Ooh, Artemis… or Tamsin. Those are both good names. I knew a Tamsin once. She was really cool. Let's go with Tamsin. No relation to the Tamsin that I knew.
Alright. So she's Lieutenant Commander Tamsin… Dewitt is not bad. Foregrave… Callahan… something heroic. Calder? Tamsin Calder? Yeah, I like that. Lieutenant Commander Tamsin Calder. Oh my god… she's so sexy.
SATAH: And the mech name.
So I do like "obligation" being in there, but not necessarily the word that I use as a name. The first phrase that comes to mind with "obligation" is some sort of… is it an aphorism or something like that? Mechs being named after old wives tales kind of thing… is really fun to me. Um, and the reason I thought about that is that a phrase came to mind that was like, "The obligation of the something that somethings is to something." Which has that sort of compact lesson that is really common in– what is- what's- what's the word I'm thinking of?
Proverb… I think is the word that I was thinking of. Just the really pat, uh, pithy saying that has a- a fundamental moral lesson that will obviously be very… over applied. I think that the idea that mechs in this world are generally named after whatever, like, internal proverbs they have is really appealing to me.
And especially I think probably what that means is that you get people punning on proverbs that they don't agree with? The– I- I looked up a list of proverbs and the very first one is "a bad workman always blames his tools." And the idea of like– you've got a mech that is named A Bad Workman Always Blames His Tools, that you refer to as like Work or Bad Work or something like that. But if you disagree with that proverb, then developing a habit of saying that the mech's name is, like, What Looks Like A Bad Workman Is Often Bad Tools, or something like that? Like it just– just having the culture of being like, "Ugh! I hate this proverb!"
Uh, yeah. So! A proverb with "obligation." The direction my brain is going is, "The obligation of something with wings is…" and it's not "to fly" but it's- it's like, "to protect the sky" or something. But it could even be, like, "the obligation… of those with wings… is to eat the highest fruit?" Uh… and that's supposed to both mean, like… if you're really good at something or if you have some sort of skill, you have to use it. And also… you shouldn't be taking the easier way… because you should leave the easier way accessible for people who don't have your skill? So it is implying a morality of, "If you're good at something, you HAVE to do it." And also, "Some people aren't good at things and that's okay. But! As somebody who is good at that thing, it is your moral imperative to make sure that they are still able to get that need met." [Big laugh]
So the mech name in full, uh, is… how was it that I put it? Uh… what I've written down is "The creature with the strongest wings has an obligation to the highest fruit." That's the full name… and what is it that they are referred to by? Wings is a possibility, probably too generic. Fruit would be funny. Highest Fruit? Th– [Laughs] I won't be able to take it seriously. It sounds like I'm talking about my stoner gay friends. [Laughs] Uh…
I'm going to amend it to "The creature with the strongest wings has an obligation to pick the highest fruit" and probably the mech is often referred to as Pick. Yeah. We'll see how that develops in the memories, but let's go.
So we've got our pilot, Brig Cadaver and their mech, The Creature With The Strongest Wings Has An Obligation To Pick The Highest Fruit… AKA Pick.
Wow. I need a game where you just come up with proverbs and then name mechs after them. Because that… was very fun to me. [Laughing]
DEE: I've established that there are two sides and, like, each side uses different kinds of mechs. Um, there's like a… we have, I guess, our own industrial bases.
So what's going on here? What are the cultural forces?
The Gundam palette that I keep coming back to is sort of that… it's always about colonies versus Earth. That plays out a lot of different ways in Gundam. But I kind of… let's do something different. Let's not do that. I do like the idea of– let's, like, keep it to the solar system. So it's sort of, like, slow space travel. We're not warping across the galaxy. We are very sort of, like, grounded.
[Thoughtful humming] Stuff has to happen in very close distances… oh gosh, I see how we wind up with the Gundam equation if we go with Gundam aesthetics. Because if I'm firing bullets in space and missiles in space, things are happening at very short distances, because you know like, you need… other kinds of solutions. Like, across the kinds of distances that you can get in space, you can't sort of like– you're not dog fighting. It's very strategic.
But so, um… but no, that's fine. The balance of power is that we have to get into knife fighting range if we want to interact at all. And that probably means that we are like, yeah, let's keep pretty close. Let's keep pretty close to home. I'm just gonna… I'm gonna give up to the Gundam. I'm going to embrace the Gundam.
And I think this conflict is between… the moon and Earth. The beautiful moon. The moon has been colonised and, like… probably was… was very, was kind of a capitalist hellscape, right? Because… all of the- all of the construction that was done there, it's for– because it's easier to build certain things in low gravity…
That can sort of be our unobtainium, right? Like, whatever. There's some compound that allows us to do all of these launches. Like, we still have to, like, launch from Earth, like a rocket has to go up, but, uh you know, we have sort of like… no, actually! Actually, yeah, that's why there's so much stuff on the moon, because it's still expensive to launch things from Earth. Like, so… we went and we– you know, these big corporations enabled by lax national governments, build all of the stuff on the moon, uh, because then you could have space industry for a much lower cost. Because you're not always shooting these big rockets into space.
And I think that the moon is the bad guys. Um, it's- it's innately tempting to me to make them the good guys. But the– the moon is really kind of this corporate dystopia, where it was like founded by corporations, developed by corporations… and you know, of course, there are real people on the moon with real problems, real human concerns, but they are ruled by corporations who have no accountability, no oversight.
And what has started to happen is that the mega corporations are so powerful that they, uh– they were kind of ruling Earth, and… I think that this war was framed at first as a war of independence,? Or not– not just independence, but sort of like casting off the yoke of these like evil corporations on the moon. That's how it was played, you know, on our side, on the Earth side.
But what has become increasingly clear is that it's actually just power fighting power. Right? Because there are… all of the exact same forces are at work on Earth. They are just, you know, like– they're just framed differently. Like– corporations came up with this brand new power base on the moon, where they had no accountability, and they can really just go HAM, and that never happened on Earth– the corporations that are sort of building the things for our side are still leashed– but it's also the military industrial complex, right? It's these like ostensibly republican governments that actually– like, people feel hugely alienated from, that have these sort of like very calcified political classes and are deeply involved and tangled with these huge corporations that are producing the mechs that we use to fight the moon.
And I think that there's probably something like the– I'm gonna write this down– there's probably something like the… I think the words are going to be "coalition" and "alliance" and the more heroic one should go to Earth. Because we my pilot has like, at least at some point, thought of- of us as the good guys.
So I think it's just going to be the Earth Alliance and the Lunar Coalition. Or the Coalition of Luna. That's better. And we've been fighting for, like, twenty years now. Society is structured around this war. You know, like people are– like the military is huge, there's conscription, like, industry is being repurposed has been repurposed to build the tools of war, and the rich are getting richer and richer and richer.
I think that, like, probably the– there's parts of Earth that are controlled by the Coalition of Luna, because like they need… I assume they need like air and water and stuff, um, and food is probably harder to grow on the moon. So they're sort of like… a lot of our fighting is done over territory on Earth. Sometime it– sometimes it's territory in space.
Yeah, I think we have enough. And a lot will come up in the memories, too. So let's… gooooo.
BREAK
SATAH: Okay, look, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I am… so thrilled that this game about cybernetic longing and tragedy is being played by a full trio of Canadian dykes. The country is a coincidence and, uh, confers no particular benefits narratively, but I do think the lesbianism is both relevant and vital.
Brianna Price is a TTRPG designer and accessibility coordinator. I have had the enormous pleasure of playtesting a lot of her work, so I'm very familiar with it. You can find some of it at weepingrobot.itch.io. And I particularly want to shine a light on the alpha slash playtesting edition that's currently available of Brothers in Arms, which is a, uh, Forged in the Dark ish game about– fittingly for this series– being a construct created for war. The campaign of Brothers in Arms that I played is probably one of my most cherished TTRPG experiences, so I really, really highly recommend you give it a look. Brianna also streams regularly at twitch.tv/saltcravings, particularly the Worst Foot Forward series, where she and her cohost play the worst games in a given game series. And you can follow her on Bluesky at priceofbrie.
Dora quotation marks "Dee" Rogers is a writer and game designer whose solo work can be found at deecity.itch.io and whose work with her wife can be found at gal-pal-games.itch.io. Tomorrow she is launching a crowdfunder for Drink My Sweat, a TTRPG about queer feminine transgression and messy attraction expressed through the ritualised violence of a fight club. As someone who loves to put characters in situations, I am so incredibly compelled by the basic pitch that you don't win by winning, you win by getting the most messed up. If you're listening to this episode the day that it drops, you can follow the Kickstarter to be notified when it launches tomorrow. If you're listening anytime in February, go and back it immediately.
As for me, I'm Satah and you are currently listening to my show. Thank you. I'm a game designer, editor, and musician. You can find a bunch of my work at gaygothvibes.online. I released an EP at the end of last year called it's really only, which you can find at peopleyoumeetoutsideofbars.bandcamp.com as well as on your preferred music rental service. Which people who are less annoying than me call streaming services.
As we get into the memories, I want to mention the game's beautiful instruction to mark your chassis. It asks you to physically write on your own body every time you narrate a memory, which creates this deeply visceral reminder of what you and your character have gone through. Both Brianna and Dee do this, and I… don't! In my playthrough. Internally, completely unconsciously, I had sorted it into something that is not relevant to an audio medium. I really regret that that went unexamined long enough for me to miss it because I think that it is deeply meaningful to the emotional arc of the game, so I really encourage you to pay attention to that if you play.
Now it is time to remember.
GAME: MEMORY ONE
BRIANNA: Section two is that we relive our memories.
DEE: "Now we take it in turns reliving the memories of your love for your pilot. These are the memories that rush through your AI core…
BRIANNA & DEE: "as you stand on the field of battle…"
BRIANNA: "forced to make a choice about both your futures."
SATAH: We're going to do seven scenes. I think. I think I've waffled between five and seven, but I think that seven will work. Seven is the suggested amount for one player, but I just worry about… it being too long and asking guests to record things for seventeen… hundred hours or whatever…
BRIANNA: We're going to do seven scenes. We're going to do seven scenes. I wanna marinate in this.
"The person who most recently confessed their love for someone goes first."
DEE: I really love this prompt though. Like, I love tools for how you decide who goes first. I think every game should have one. It's arbitrary, but it just, like, stops there from being a moment where everybody pauses at the table and isn't sure what to do.
Um, "confessed" is an interesting word. I'm married, so I confessed my love to her a long time ago, but I tell her I love her all the time. Is that the same thing?
BRIEF INTERRUPTION
SATAH: Not weighing in on Dee's question, but I just feel the perhaps lightly neurotic need to clarify that the order of memories in the show? Is mandated by a different– but I think you'll agree, equally evocative– reason of my completely subjective yet… deeply correct… opinions on flow. Uh. Hope– hope this helps. Hope this helps.
GAME: MEMORY ONE (CONT'D)
BRIANNA: "Pick a prompt from the list. Now describe a scene aloud based on the prompt."
DEE: "Once you're done, mark your chassis as a reminder. A tally mark on your hand will do."
SATAH: And I think… I think just hop right into it. Just have to read one thing aloud.
DEE: "Read the following aloud."
ALL, OVERLAPPING/REPEATING EACH OTHER: "Focus on your love. Tell us what you remember."
SATAH: This is a list of thirty prompts. And again, I love to roll dice, so I am going to roll on this. Obviously thirty is not a die that actually exists and I could do it digitally, but what I'm going to do is just… subdivide it into three different lists of ten items. I'm going to roll a D4– uh, discard the four– to choose like, am I choosing from the first ten items? The second ten items, or the third ten items… and then I'm going to roll a D10 to figure out which one… I do!
[Laughing] One of those ideas that's much more complicated to explain than to do.
DEE: I'm going to- I am going to use a random number generator, but then I'm going to reserve the right to override it or to zoom in on something if I want.
Random.org… love you, random.
One random integer between one and thirty, inclusive. Great.
BRIANNA: I just– I guess I just choose? I might– I kind of want to just roll for this, a little bit. So maybe I'll see if I can roll D… just to get me started. I'll see if I can roll a D30. Shout out to those sites. Okay. Sixteen.
"How they spoke of you when they thought you weren't listening."
I remember, I think… the first time that I interacted with them, they didn't know that we were interacting. They thought I was still deactivated. They were talking to some… to a general. A general that I am– I vaguely knew, was just someone important. Um, and they were complaining. They were like, you know. They were saying…
BRIANNA, AS THE PILOT: It's so small. How am I supposed to pilot in something like that? I mean..! I'll have no freedom of movement. [Scoffing] Like… what's the point of piloting something when it's barely that much bigger than me? Out there, they're fighting in behemoths and you've given me a– what is that? Nine feet, ten feet tall? That's nothing!
BRIANNA: And they kind of came over and looked at me. Sort of studied me, said,
BRIANNA, AS THE PILOT: I'm not a stealth pilot. I'm a warrior. I'm not a coward and I won't pilot a cowardly mech.
BRIANNA: At the time, I think I was so new, I didn't… fully understand. But. When they shoved themself into my cockpit, like a child having a tantrum, I understood that they didn't want me.
[Sound of a marker lid popping] Tally mark one…
SATAH: [Die clatter] So I rolled a two, so this is going to be one of the results from eleven to twenty. I'm going to roll a D10 to see which one. [Die clatter] And I got a seven.
Seventeen: "When you asked them to do something for you." Huh… 
So… I think. I am going to go with the pilot being a mechanic? Or… even kind of a factory worker? And- and the scars that I noticed, they're just very telltale signs of like, oh, you work at a machine that– like, you're assembling a similar thing repeatedly a lot during a day. And there are very telltale just- burns from equipment and that kind of thing on- on- on her arms. And…
And so I think what it is– leaning also on the thing of like me being designed specifically for the enemy ace and maybe not having certain functions– what I want this to be is an early moment of… showing some vulnerability? Like, like Pick showing some vulnerability to Brig. And I want, I want to find… a function that has not been… that I wasn't designed to have, that I can ask Brig to give me.
So. I think… the area that I'm thinking of going- the direction I'm thinking of going is that… I have vision cores, right? Like sensors. I can– I can some form of, like, see things around me. But because I was built with such specific things in mind, they were like, "We're only going to give you the very essential vision cores that you would need for fighting and for tracking." And so the vision cores that I have are like, I can see movement, I can see heat, and probably read some other sort of energy signature type things, but I don't have anything programmed into me, or I don't have any hardware, that would allow me to just see in a similar way to a human or even a lot of animals kind of thing.
And it's like… Brig and I were doing some sort of training exercise… probably like a– a– it's a training exercise that is also sort of, like, uh, compatibility programming. Like this is just standard with pilots who need to have, like, a particularly strong connection with their mech, which usually they do. Is there's like training courses that you do that not only like help the pilot learn, like, how do I maneuver in this, blah, blah, blah, whatever, but help… something in the mech's programming, like, get used to the pilot and what the pilot might need and that kind of thing.
So we've been doing these training courses. And it's on… like a moon near the planet that we live on– that we were built on– I haven't really defined sort of what this– what the scale of this is or where we are, but that much at least I'm going to say… generally live on this planet and probably connected space stations and that kind of thing. And this whole moon has been turned into… huge– into a training facility for mechs. Like it is just the entire planet– quote unquote, not a planet, moon, whatever– is full scale mech training grounds.
And so… we're up there. And usually you're going through those with other people, uh, going through them with like the rest of your squad or just kind of coincidentally, a lot of people are all being trained at the same time, because a new round of mechs has come out, or there's a big battle or a new round of pilots has come up through the academy or whatever. But this is just Brig and Pick, because… we have a very unique job to do? And also, uh, trying to keep it subtle, hoping that, like, enemy forces kind of won't notice that training is happening if we just have us.
So. We have gone through– we've had this full long day of going through all these courses and it's been going really well. I think that I'll just– I'll- I'll say that it seems to go well kind of from the beginning? There wasn't a huge amount of getting to know each other. And I think in part this is like… Brig doesn't have a lot of stuff to… counter program, I guess is what I'll say? Like– one of the reasons that- that- that- that- that she has been put on this specific assignment is because I'm kind of a weird mech. And the theory in command was that it might actually be more difficult to train a seasoned pilot how to interact with me than it might be to take somebody who doesn't have any of that training, who is just a blank canvas, and train them to fly with me.
So… it's been going well! And these have been really long days and we are just… sitting. You know? And watching the sun go behind our planet, like a very weird sunset.
And Brig is like, "Isn't that beautiful? It's like this whole different perspective on this sun that I've seen rise and fall every day…" or every two days or whatever the– whatever our weird space calendar is here. "And it's this whole new perspective. It makes me- makes me appreciate it all over again. Isn't it gorgeous?"
And I just sort of stay silent and then say, "I'm so glad that you appreciate it."
And I think she's kind of teasing. She's like, "Come on, isn't it pretty? I know that you could appreciate this stuff. Come on."
And I pause again and I tell her, like, I can't see it. Like– that– I don't have those type of visual sensors. They weren't considered necessary for the mission. And so I can't see it. But I believe you! And I'm so glad.
And she gets quiet in a way that… I find worrying? And I think… I don't know her well enough yet to know– because I think that she- she feels she's upset about this because she's like, that sucks. They should– they shouldn't, like- take that away from you. Like that's a standard issue thing. They should not give you that just because you have a specific job. But I think I'm like, oh, is she worried that I will be less effective or whatever?
And I want to make sure I want to make really sure that the direction I'm going here– because it would be really easy for Brig to offer and me to accept. But I do… because the prompt was "when you ask them to do something for you," I do want to make sure that there is still that level of active, uh… agency for me, that I am asking for something?
And so I think what it– what it does is… Brig goes silent. And I'm like, "I'm sorry to upset you. There are multiple standard features that I do not come equipped with. I would be more than happy to provide you with a list if you would like to review it and bring it up to command." You know, that, "We want to make sure that you're you're perfectly comfortable," and blah, blah, blah, and I'm doing a whole thing.
And she's like, "Yeah, thanks, Pick. I guess I shouldn't assume– would you like to be able to see it?"
And I'm like, "Well, it sounds beautiful the way that you're describing it. I'm sure that I would."
And she says, "Well, how about we just ask Command to give you those sensors? Like, they're standard issue. That shouldn't be a problem."
And I… I guess I immediately have a slightly different perspective on what might be possible in Command? And I think I take the risk… I pause and- and think about it. And I make a pretty risky request, which is basically to say, like, "Command has issued me with everything that they can consider necessary and will not be making further revisions unless specifically requested by you for tactical reasons."
And there's a pause again in which Brig is like, clearly trying to mull over like, okay, how can I make this tactical? Because I've probably provided the briefs of like, "Here's why we don't need to include this," right? Like, whatever justification the designers did, I've like given her, here's their arguments, you're probably not going to win this. And she's trying to think through, how can I win this anyway?
And finally, I say, "It is possible for a skilled mechanic to make these alterations of their own volition and does not, technically– as long as it doesn't interfere with official functions– is not technically worth a reprimand."
And so it's– it's not, in that moment, an explicit ask. I don't ask, like, "Will you do this for me?" Like I don't form the question. But it is very obvious that I am saying, "Hey, you could just install it if you get one. And I'm asking you to." You know? Like I wouldn't, if I didn't want you to, I wouldn't have said that. I would just continue to shut down the possibility.
And she, like, smiles, and… part of the angle of solidarity here, I think… that I thought I would end up exploring more and I didn't, but I just want to make explicit anyway, is like: she is also a tool that is being used for a different purpose? And that has made a– a choice that goes against a lot of what her… design… the design of her life would be. She's a mechanic, she's a factory worker, whatever that exact thing is, but she is being given the opportunity to be a pilot. And so she wants to do that for me. She sees the thing, the way that I have been designed, the way that my life is supposed to be, and she wants to open that up for me. And so she does.
She finds the hardware and installs it and allows me to have a type of vision where I can like see colours and see images in a way that's much closer to the way that her vision, her human vision, her– her particular human vision operates. And installs it and it's great and it's nice. [Giggles] And we get to watch one of those sunsets together. She manages to locate it like right before training ends, you know? And it's the very last sunset on this moon, that we actually do get to watch together.
One note is that she can install the hardware, but, and she says to me like, "If I have to do any custom software, we're fucked. Like, I'm… I'm not a programmer, I'm not a hacker."
And I'm like, I think… you know. Pop- pop the disk in, I can probably figure it out.
DEE: Four. "The night you spent watching comets and talking about the future." That's beautiful. Um… okay, focus on your love. Tell us what you remember.
I think that I was first deployed in space. Tamsin, of course, is from Earth and… she had piloted lots of mechs before me. And I think she– this is interesting. I think that AI mechs are an innovation during this war. And I was the first AI mech that she had piloted. So she loved her other mechs as, um, people who work very closely with machines love the machines that they work with. And she loved me that way. I think that, um… she was… she was very impressed with me from the first time that we went out, um with my– with my body is what we'll call it, right? With my- my- my physical capabilities, my armor, my weaponry, um, my precision targeting, and also the way- the way that I pilot.
Like I'm probably really hard to pilot [Laughing], which is why we needed somebody as good as Tamsin. You know, it's like driving a sixteen-wheeler, sort of. It's like, you have to be strong, you have to be decisive, you have to sort of see three moves ahead in order to keep up with the action in a battle. And she's all those things.
Yeah, so she was really impressed with me as a mech, as somebody who's an expert in mechs. But I'm also an AI. And I think that, uh… gosh, this is so interesting– sorry, I have this whole thing…
I've been thinking about recently that, because we live in the age of large language models… and I think that there's a lot of ways in which AIs have been a symbol of marginalisation, marginalised people, either like marginalised genders or racialised people, going back to… like… I mean, heck, going back to Frankenstein, frankly, but also like Rossum's Universal Robots. But, like, the way that they're actually working in practice is kind of the opposite of that? Like, they're faulty consumer products. Which is like, you know, they're products that are way overhyped that actually do a lot of harm. Um, so marginalisation is not a good metaphor to think of as a way to think about… as a way to think about ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever.
I think where that leads me is I think that Tamsin hated the fact that there was an AI in this machine that she really liked. At first. I think that my- my- my function in combat is… like, I can pilot– I can pilot myself, like I have an autopilot function, um but that's really only good for moving from place to place. Y'know, like, I can be like, okay, now I'm going to fly through space on a certain orbit for, like, four hours to get us to where we need to be. Or, like, I will trudge across this landscape so that you don't have to be guiding us in a precision way all this time. Um, and I also, like, can assist with a lot of things. And I think that Tamsin and I have probably worked out that I do a lot less of this than I'm capable of. Like… y'know, there's supposed to be sort of like… I enable a much simpler way of interacting with the mech than pilots were used to. Um, like, you have to do a lot less controlling the limbs, you know, like, manually. But Tamsin prefers to do that, and it's part of what makes her so incredible as a pilot. So we have worked out between us, as our partnership developed, that she does most of it.
Um, gosh, I am talking a lot about– and I haven't even mentioned the comets. But my point is that Tamsin, at first, just hated me because she thought of me as another consumerist creation that wassort of being forced on her by… not superiors, because it's not like she doesn't trust her commanding officer necessarily, but by, like, large forces that she had grew to distrust. Right? I think that by the time I came along, she was already kind of like, "There's no incentive for this war to end. Like, they actually want this war to continue. And I know that if don't… like, if we lose, there are real consequences. There will be civilians who suffer, not to mention my comrades will suffer and might die. But it's not as though things are going to get better if I keep winning." So she already had this deep disdain for stuff that came down.
But she admired this machine. She desired– like, admired the doctrine. She was like, "Oh, it's cool that this is purpose-built for this specific situation that we run into where people get mowed down by this really heavy firepower. It's too bad it has this AI. I'm going to use it as little as possible."
And… I think that… and this is something that the corporations probably actually hate. [Chuckles] I think that maybe they stopped creating– they stopped using AIs in mechs at a certain point, or true AIs. Because the theory was, at the time, that mechs were so complex that they actually needed to have a general intelligence, which is what I am. They actually needed a general intelligence to assist the pilot.  Um, so I'm like a science fiction AI. I'm a person. I'm a person. And at a certain point, they stopped putting people in mechs. Because people are just inconvenient. We, uh… we have opinions. We form relationships. People start to ask, like, "Wait, don't these things have rights if they're people?" Um, so I think that actually they've stopped making them and they're sort of trying to… they want to obsolete us. Right? Like, they have an incentive for the Adze class no longer to be used, because all of the Adzes that were made before a certain date have people in them. Are people.
[Sigh] And it took Tamsin a while to accept that. To accept that I was a person. And this was before people were getting phased out, before generalized AIs were getting phased out of mechs. And the night that she accepted was the night that we spent watching comets and talking about the future.
And yeah, I think it was my first time on earth. We were back from a mission. We were at sort of a forward operating base and she… had heard… she has a loved one. She has a sister who told her this, who like, had reminded her that there was going to be a, um… y'know, a comet visible from Earth. And I think that her correspondence is probably very censored, so she like– her sister didn't know where Tamsin was going to be, but was like, "Oh, if you're anywhere in this part of the world, you should check it out!" And she was. So it was a way of sort of feeling close to her sister, and also because comets are cool.
She, you know, we're at this base, she was up late, um, like, in the cockpit doing some… uh, you know, checking systems, doing some maintenance. And, um. She opened up the cockpit and was just staring out at the comet. This sort of big bright spot in the night sky. And thinking about her sister.
And I asked if I could see. And she was kind of amused by this and she sort of like switched on the main camera so that I could see, so that I could see the comet. And I think that sparked curiosity in her. And she was like, "Why do you want to see it?"
And I just said, "I've never seen one before."
And that, you know, that was like… a moment where she was kind of like… this is a person, actually. This, like, little voice I've been arguing with and trying to turn on and, like, cursing out who's weirdly nice to me despite all of that, is actually kind of a person. And she kind of got curious and asked me questions. And I asked her questions, like personal questions.
And I think I asked her, I was really interested in her human life, her life outside of the war, especially when she told me about her sister and the comet. So I asked her questions about the past and that led to the conversation about the future where I said, "What do you want to do after the war?"
And I think that she didn't really know. I think that she'd HAD a dream. She wanted to be a… she wanted to be a pilot. Not a mech pilot, originally; she wanted to be like a… like a- like a spaceship pilot. You know, she pictured herself doing cargo runs up to the moon or just sort of, like, the small colonies that are out on the asteroid belt, and sort of being an adventurer and a traveler. And she was so good at it. She was such– she showed such aptitude as a pilot that they moved her into the mech pilot program when the war started or, you know, at some point in her training. Maybe the war was still going on when she came of age.
Um, and… she kind of mused about the idea of doing that again. And I think I asked her what I could do after the war. And this was another moment where she was like, "Oh, you think about that?"
And I was like, "Yeah, I think about that. I think…" like, what would I have said? I think I said something like very charming, like, "I've wondered– I've wondered if Adzes could be used for agricultural work. I think I might like being outdoors." You know, something kind of– like a little silly, but you know, like what else is a– like. I think she probably laughed at me and I was kind of like, yeah, it's kind of silly.
And this again is a moment where she was kind of like, oh, this is actually– this is actually a person inside of this machine.
This is something I think about… I've been thinking– obviously, as we all have, I've been thinking a lot about AI recently. Um, so I really like the movie Blade Runner 2049. I think it's a very smart sequel. Uh– Blade Runner– okay, I won't go on a tangent about Blade Runner. This recording is long enough. But there was a thing in Blade Runner 2049 where the– our hero has a girlfriend, basically, who is an AI. And I kept waiting for that to actually be a really bad idea? For her to be like, "I actually really love you, but like my factory settings are coming up and I have to betray you to the- to the corporation now." And that never happened, which made me go like. It's fucking crazy that this company sells people. Like, who actually have agency, when they could choose to not do that, presumably. Right? Like people are going to fight back if you– if you take away their independence. So why would you… want a person, right? Like surely you'd want… something that can only pretend to be a person.
And I think that like– I think that in the wake of this comet, this night comet conversation, Tamsin was probably… maybe it was kind of like… "I think that they really fucked up and this is actually a person in this machine. That's interesting! What kind of trouble can I get into with this person?"
Um, yeah. Okay. "Once you are done, mark your chassis as a reminder. A tally mark on your hand will do," but that's not what I'm going to do. I am drawing… I'm going to draw a comet on my wrist. Very badly because I'm a very bad artist. Yeah, that looks… really stupid. But. Picture that I have just, um, with eyeliner, drawn a little comet with its tail on the inside of my wrist on my right hand.
And um… there's a decal. Not a decal, that's what it would be on like a- a- like a model Gundome. Tamsin stenciled a comet on my chassis after we had that- that night, as sort of a pledge to me.
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co. Sign up as a paid member at patreon.com/foliopod to vote on games, participate in live streams, or join for free to get access to the bonus feed with edited audio only versions of the streams a couple weeks after they happen and occasional other stuff.
You can find Brianna on Blue Sky as priceofbrie, like the cost of the cheese. Check out her games at weepingrobot.itch.io and watch her stream at twitch.tv/saltcravings.
You can find Dora on Blue Sky at queenregnant. She has games at deecity, deecity.itch.io, games she makes with her wife at gal-pal-games.itch.io. Check out her Kickstarter for Drink My Sweat, a game about ritualizing queer feminine transgression and messy attraction through a fight club, running through February 2025.
You can find Satah– and that's me– at posatahchips on social media generally, and check out my other work at gaygothvibes.online.
Next week, Brianna, Dee, and I will continue our games of Live. Love. Die. Remember. by Ray Cox. Everything I mentioned here is linked in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and take care out there.