Tools Crave Beauty: An Interview with Isabelle, creator of Girl Frame
I have read many "Gay RPGs". Most were penned in the 2010s and exude a colorful triumphant confidence that rings hollow in the modern world.
Girl Frame is the first game I've read since Dungeon Bitches that feels by us and for us, instead of merely about us. It is a game about the bruises left behind by a culture hellbent on punching down.
Despite no interior art and a google-docs-ass layout, Girl Frame was by far the most emotionally moving book I read last year. It rises to the call of Jay's Expressionist Games Manifesto with shocking grace. In a hobby increasingly preoccupied by the beauty of books-as-artifacts - art, layout, print quality, and bindings - Girl Frame reminded me that our words yet matter more.
I've never played a PbtA game.1 I am woefully unqualified to review it. But by god that's not going to stop me from recommending each and every one of you read it.
In place of my own thoughts, I've decided to substitute the author's. I spoke with Isabelle in the traditional forum of our people - a Discord DM.
This interview has been edited for clarity and to remove my meandering tangents.
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How would you describe Girl Frame?
Girl Frame is a powered by the apocalypse game about lesbian mech pilots navigating social interactions with each other, under the watchful gaze of a "Handler" tasked with using them as tools to defeat an eldritch threat. It focuses on identity, fascism, transfemininity, and extremely toxic social dynamics.
I find your choice of what to omit from that description just as interesting as what you included.
I like leaving some stuff for people to find out :D. I also want to set the right kind of expectations, I think some elements of the game are... present but less of a focus in my mind than they might be percieved to be? In that I did have to think for a moment to remember what I might have omitted.
To address that elephant in the room, how do you feel about getting caught up in Mechsploitation's wider cultural wave?
Girl Frame’s association with the genre is a huge contributor to the game’s success, but undeniably gives folks who’ve heard about your game a distorted view.
You had no idea what that genre was until you were starting to move the game from the Forged in the Dark engine to Powered by the Apocalypse, right?
Yeah! I see mechsploitation as a continuation of the wider mecha genre but through a transfeminine lens, so I think I was definitely drawing on some of that same cultural zeitgeist, coming off of Evangelion, Witch From Mercury, Armoured Core 6, and the 2021 anti-trans panic. I think it's cool to be almost... validated in my reproduction of the zeitgeist, if that makes sense? Obviously I was drawing on something that resonates.
I do consider Girl Frame a part of the mechsploitaion genre, but I think it got there through some of the same channels that gave rise to early mechsploitation, rather than through an attempt to reproduce the genre itself. That version of the game would have a lot more sex.
Why do you think mecha, and Armored Core 6 in particular, is such a popular vehicle for exploring trauma and toxic power dynamics among trans women? None of this media, including yours, is THAT enamored with giant robot fighting compared to the drama.
I think it comes fundamentally from Gundam and Evangelion. The mecha genre has almost always been about power and trauma moreso than the robot fights, all the way back to the late 70s. It's about the industrialization of war and an adult coating you in metal to kill things better and telling you to stop being a little bitch and go fight. It's always been about how you deal with fascism or fall into it yourself.
In terms of transness, I think there's a few elements. Getting into a more powerful body and moving it intuitively is very trans. Trans interpretations of Amuro, Kamille, and Shinji, characters who struggle with masculinity, sensitivity, and their relationships with femininity are older than I am. I think AC6 (which is very, very focused on the robot fighting) is coming also off the back of Witch From Mercury lesbianizing the mecha genre, as well as having a gender-ambiguous main character and a really solid plot about exploitation, bodily customization, and fascist control.
Most people reach this corner of the hobby by GMing D&D or Pathfinder through their teens, then slowly branch out to indie games in their 20’s. You, however, were writing GLOG posts and playing Dream Askew with Avery Adler by your mid teens. The GLOG pipeline I understand, but how were you introduced to cutting edge storygames at such a young age? And why did you latch on to them?
I was a bit too young to remember, to be honest. I think my first storygame I played was at 14 or so (apocalypse world 2e), but I'd been reading whatever I could find for years. I was always a storyteller and so games that facilitated genre and stories in such an interesting and obviously competent way really appealed to me.
I also got an early start on ttrpgs in general, my first game of 4e D&D I was eight.
That’s wild. Who DM’d it? Family?
I’m struggling to imagine a table in 2010 that welcoming to an 8yr old.
Yeah, my dad. He played D&D in the 80s, and he figured I'd like it. There wasn't really a ttrpg scene where I grew up so until I was old enough to play online I mostly tried and failed to organize games with friends and read PDFs instead.
I was 17, fairly close to finishing highschool and saw Avery advertising a game session on twitter, I believe? I checked the location because it felt familiar, and realized it was right behind my local grocery store. I haven't chatted with her really since that game though, but it was a cool experience at the time, especially having not really played ttrpgs with strangers IRL.
What were your playtests of Girl Frame like? The vast majority of role players I’ve pitched this game to flinch at the prospect of being that vulnerable around other people, so how’d you build the buy in?
Long time friends, mostly. I have an IRL play group made up of my current partner, exes, and some mutual friends. I ran a couple games online as well with other trans women, but to be honest the game's IRL playtesters were mostly cis girls, nonbinary people, and trans men. I don't think I've played any IRL games with other transfems.
You mentioned once that Girl Frame has “struck a chord” with many people who dislike PbtA. Why do you think that is?
Two things: I think people who dislike PbtA have mostly played PbtA games that don't understand PbtA. I like to think I understand PbtA and made a game that gets across how it's supposed to be played pretty well. I think a lot more people would like the engine if their introductions to it was Apocalypse World and Under Hollow Hills and Monsterhearts, games that really get what PbtA is trying to do.
Second is that I think Girl Frame takes a common criticism of pbta, that the moves feel "limiting," and uses that as a design decision. I don't see myself as validating that criticism, I think I'm kinda making fun of it a bit by saying like "okay, here's a game that's actually restrictive." But it kinda has the side effect of making people view things through this lens of intentionality.
Sometimes recognizing that someone knows what they're doing, has seen the criticisms, and is doing that stuff intentionally anyways makes you more willing to engage with it with the assumption that the choices they're making have a good reason behind them.
This game is extremely transfem coded. What would you say to someone outside that identity - perhaps to someone who isn’t queer at all - who might struggle to understand Girl Frame?
I think in 2026 gender, fascism, and dehumanization are pretty universal experiences. Transfems are on the front lines of that, but everyone feels the effects even if they don't realize it.
I don't think I wrote this game about being a trans woman. I think I wrote a game about trying to be a person in an increasingly fascist world, rather than being a commodity or a tool. The game is filtered through my personal transfeminine experience, but I think it has a lot to say to other people if they don't view it as just "the game for trans women" and instead try and engage with the elements that speak to them or are relevant to their lives.
I have one last question, but my players - adorably annoying bitches all - demand that I also ask you some brief nonsense.
Based
“Fave fast food chain + usual order?"
I've never eaten fast food unless someone else bought it for me.
Insane. One of the wildest things a person has ever said to me.
There was only 1 resturant in the town I grew up in. I didn't see a fast food chain really until I went to university. My hometown has under 400 people. And I didn't even grow up in town, I grew up 14 kilometers outside of it in the woods.
I live in a city now but I haven't gotten fast food unless someone else is buying.
They’re going to go ape shit when I tell them this.
They’re going to try and find a way to mail you Church’s Chicken2 and I am going to stop them.
Final Question:
When should we expect the Kickstarter?
Can't say anything about that unfortunately.
I'd love to have more info but I don't, have mostly been preoccupied with trying to get the money from the initial sales from itch into my bank account.
So moving things further has taken a backburner until I actually get a single cent of what I earned with this game. Most of my issues have been with PayPal and the Canadian government's business requirements, but we’ll see if things get more complex or take too long.
Far beyond my expertise. I can only wish you luck on your well deserved windfall.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. This was delightful.
No problem! Was great.
$15 on itch. Subscribe to her patreon for early access to updates.
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