Mecha Research III

Hello there!

We’re deep in the story development phase of our big mech project, and got some exciting shifts to share with you!

Originally, we planned for an ensemble story: four mechs, four pilots, all navigating a war zone while unpacking drama, trauma, and the heavy toll of battle. But as we began fleshing it out, we realized trying to do justice to all four characters, with all the twists and depth we imagined, would be overwhelming to tackle without a bigger team first.    

So after a lot of thought, we’re making a smart pivot.

Instead of four pilots, we’re doing a starter story with two. It’s still a mech road movie, still full of tanks and big worldbuilding, but with a tighter focus. (We still plan to come back to the 4 pilots when we have a bigger budget.) Think Midnight Run, Riding Bean, Gunsmith Cats, or even Dirty Pair: two characters, big personalities, plenty of chaos.

The two-character dynamic is giving the story more clarity and letting us play to our strengths while still leaving room for action and finishing sooner than what was being projected, so we can publish it sooner as well.

The current idea is a dangerous delivery mission by mech, down to a planet’s surface. Our two protagonists, criminals on sketchy work release, are being pursued by an obsessed law enforcer after being commissioned to make a drop. But when the truth about their delivery comes out, things spiral into cosmic terror. The landscape shifts into a towering, ancient Lovecraftian hell. They must deliver the thing and get off the planet before giant horrors tear the planet apart. So absolute collateral damage by the end, in the classic Dirty Pair style.

I've been reading Gou Tanabe's manga adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness for research on how to portray things that are written to be "indescribable."

(Turns out "indescribable" is just eyeballs in jelly!)

I’ve also been drawing inspiration from Armored Core 6 (just did the 3rd playthrough/3rd ending), and one thing that struck me was that even though you’re in a giant mech, some of the environments are awe inspiringly large, dwarfing your machine. That kind of juxtaposition between giant mecha and immensely massive alien hell structures which make the mech look like an ant could make for a really interesting dynamic in our film, I reckon.

I still want to keep our mech a bit more heavy and grounded though, and not quite the ultra-maneuverable ninja machines that you can build in Armored Core.

To avoid leaving you waiting long for a 45-minute finished film, we’re also exploring the idea of releasing in 10-minute episodes. 

Also, going double the screen time than Alien:MONDAY, it’s really important to avoid burnout. After watching Project A-Ko and the behind the scenes documentary recently, I’ve realised that a huge key to this is to just do what’s fun! They were all having a blast, it seems.

So, at least to begin, we might end up with a crazy story rather than the slow-burn angst of war just yet.

Thanks to all of you who’ve stuck with us this far. Your presence means everything, and your patience gives us the freedom to give it our all into each film. Once we have more help and experience, we’d still love to revisit a full squad story.

For now, we hope you’ll be as excited as we are to see where this new direction leads. For backers, of course we will have a new art book! We can also offer 3D printing files of the mechs, but please let us know what other types of offers you’d be excited to have? (We want to do shirts, but it’s insanely hard to find fast printing that allows more than 4 colors at a time, unless no one minds that..?)

Other possible options:
- custom mugs
- notebook
- mousepad
- can cooler
- baseball caps

I hope you'll still enjoy it as there will be plenty of explosions and gunfire.

- Paul and Maki