Backwards Tabletop is out on prelaunch and free to download. The game will hit beta release on the 1st of May, after which it’ll cost $7.
Rust Never Sleeps puts a single player in control of a grunge mecha, where a deck of cards represents their limited battery power. The gameplay involves missions from journal prompts and using blackjack mechanics to pilot the hero’s machine.
For example, a big red button offers a risky boost – go bust, and the pilot has wasted energy; run out of cards entirely, and the rustbucket is destroyed. Success means completing missions before depleting the mecha’s battery deck. Surviving allows the pilot to upgrade their mecha, unlocking special abilities through a visual system of colouring components, connecting parts, and activating lights on the character sheet.
Asa Donald wrote Rust Never Sleeps and offers scaffolded journaling, which avoids players needing to write from scratch, using prompts instead, and promises no number crunching. While there’s no grid, there is tactical storytelling.
The world as we knew it in Rust Never Sleeps is gone, wiped out by a catastrophe called “The End.” In the aftermath, explosions at the WPPSS nuclear plants transformed southeastern Washington into an irradiated, arid wasteland, a scarred land still struggling to recover. Decades later, following a century of turmoil, a demagogue named Colin Martin-Guy seized control of the Washington Territories. Promising an escape to a terraformed Mars, “The Commander” instead established an authoritarian regime, crushing dissent with draconian censorship, imposing a birth tax, outlawing minimum wage, and cancelling elections indefinitely, consolidating seemingly absolute power.
Despite the overwhelming odds, resistance flickers in the wasteland. The character in the game have thrown their lot in with these rebels, dedicating months to training at a secret base to pilot one of their few assets: a “Rustbucket.” These antiquated mechs, stolen from Seattle’s Museum of Flight, are primitive enough to be maintained with current tech, offering a sliver of hope. Realistically, the rebellion stands little chance against the Commander’s vast resources, numbers, and fleet of mechs. Yet, driven by defiance in the face of near-certain defeat, would-be heroes cling to the grim mantra: you can either burn out or rust.
