A game for people who dig giant freakin' robots

We Dig Giant Robots is a new rules-light, comedy mecha game, inspired by Mike Pondsmith’s Teenagers From Outer Space, Ryo Kamiya's Maid RPG, and Cartoon Network show, Megas XLR. It promises an evening spent telling stories about big, silly robots with flame decals. It’s crowdfunding on Kickstarter now.

It’s designed by Kamala Kara Arroyo, whose previous work includes the shonen-inspired Friendship, Effort, Victory and is published by the Far Horizon’s Co-op, one of the few publishers regularly releasing work in the RPG space through a more co-operative model. Far Horizon’s is a loose collective of designers, artists, editors, and so on who work on games together and share the profits of publishing them, according to agreed rates. 

The interview has been slightly edited and condensed.

Thomas Manuel: Can you tell me a little about yourself? Where are you from? How did you get into games?

Kamala Kara Arroyo: I'm always a bit bad at these introductions. I'm Kamala Kara Arroyo. I'm a 31 year old Puerto Rican Italian New Yorker. I'm trans and I make games. I got into the hobby in 2012 at college when my sophomore roommate wanted to playtest Legends d20 by Rule of Cool and invited me to it. That game went awfully, in hindsight, and my friend often joked how odd it was that I stayed in the hobby after that experience. 

I started experimenting with design even all the way back then, making what I now know are microgames. I always liked the idea of making games but had no head for programming. Tabletop RPGs, board games, and card games opened up the possibility of actually making it happen. I think it comes from a deep desire to make other people happy. Anyway, I've messed around making small games and content for years online. Usually fan hacks of popular IPs. I always end up wanting to play something that doesn't exist and end up having to make it myself. Then, ironically, I get too anxious after playtesting to actually run things because I can only see the flaws and I'm afraid people will hate it! But, yeah, I've been making games for a while. 

I usually play story and narrative games. There was like a 3 year straight period where I'd only play PbtA games. That's when Friendship, Effort, Victory was written, but I've recently broadened out into tactical stuff. I used to play board games all the time in college, but now I am socially isolated in NY and have no one to play with. I do like playing card games online and really enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon 2020. Sometimes, I feel like I prefer making games than playing them. Outside of that, I like video games, cooking, baking, anime, cartoons, superheroes, Terry Pratchett, and a bunch of other stuff…