Mech Mechanic Simulator's methodical machinery repair is available now
Metal gear rusted
Hayao Miyazaki once wrote that he didn't like mech anime because he thought the person who builds the machine should be the hero, not the person who pilots it. Here's your chance to be Miyazaki's hero.
Mech Mechanic Simulator is out now and it's about dismantling, repairing and rebuilding mechs for fun and profit. It's published by PlayWay, they of House Flipper, Car Mechanic Simulator and approximately a million other similar sims. Games in which you click without skill to perform every action, and games which I find endlessly fascinating.
I played the Mech Mechanic demo - now available as a Prologue on Steam - and found it as satisfying as all of these games. There's a jigsaw-like quality to it: you're presented with a mech leg or arm or torso and must click to remove each individual screw, bolt, rod, and piston until you find the broken part. There are simple minigames to perform repairs, and then it's back to click-click-clicking to rebuild the appendage.
Around this sits a straightforward economic simulation, where you run your mech repair business by selling refurbished mechs and buying replacement parts, but that's not really the point. Like PlayWay's other games, there's very little skill required to play and few consequences to your actions. Instead, they're all about the fantasy of the setting and the methodical completion of these simple manual tasks. Some folks crochet scarves while they listen to podcasts; others fix mechs.
The demo also had a deeply annoying 'comedy' robot who would quip while you were working though, so consider this forewarning.
Mech Mechanic Simulator is out now and costs £15.29/$18/€17.09 from Steam.