Clockwork Empires: Lovecraft-laden steampunk city-builder

Gaslamp Games, makers of Dungeons of Dredmor, announced Clockwork Empires today.

IMAGE(http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/08/clockwork-empires.jpg)

PC Gamer preview:
http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/cloc...

Take SimCity and stuff it with steampunk. Take Dwarf Fortress and make it modern. Take Anno and dump H.P. Lovecraft into its oceans.

Consider yourself mildly acquainted with Clockwork Empires, the next project of Gaslamp Games. The indies behind of Dungeons of Dredmor are creating a 3D, sandboxy city-builder teeming with 19th century imperialism. It’ll be populated by street urchins, aristocrats, volcanoes, sea serpents, war zeppelins, mad scientists, and at least one foodstuff that doubles as a building material. It’ll be irreverent. It’ll have multiplayer. It’ll be moddable. Most of all, I think it has a chance to set a new standard for player-driven story generation in the genre.

I enjoyed Dungeons of Dredmor quite a bit, so I'm interested to see their take on this type of game.

Gaslamp Games = I'm in.

I'll be in my bunk.

I am required by law to like the name.

All I want to know is WHEN and HOW MUCH and WHY HAVENT YOU TAKEN MY MONEY ALREADY?!

IMAGE(http://www.litekul.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/shut-up-and-take-my-bottlecaps.png)

Can't. Wait.

That looks really fun.

I think I was just lamenting on the lack of Steampunk-related games. This game is now on the radar

IMAGE(http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/aa435/czwblitz/George-Takei-oh-my.jpg)

While steampunk and Lovecraft are two concepts that are terribly played out for me, I loved Dredmor and will keep my eye on this one just because it is the same studio.

IMAGE(http://img.skitch.com/20100827-n3jk3j27ysj4swck5m4t9fg9yk.jpg)

Wee! OS X and Linux support!

I love these city-builder/modern DF-likes, so I'll be buying this for sure. Nobody's mentioned a date, so I'm guessing this is quite a ways off. I hope not too far off.

Puce Moose wrote:

It’ll be populated by street urchins, aristocrats, volcanoes, sea serpents, war zeppelins, mad scientists, and at least one foodstuff that doubles as a building material. It’ll be irreverent. It’ll have multiplayer. It’ll be moddable. Most of all, I think it has a chance to set a new standard for player-driven story generation in the genre.

Bold by me.

...Hey Puce, I got this idea where you and Trichy team up to write mods for this...

Yes, please!

Falchion wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:

It’ll be populated by street urchins, aristocrats, volcanoes, sea serpents, war zeppelins, mad scientists, and at least one foodstuff that doubles as a building material. It’ll be irreverent. It’ll have multiplayer. It’ll be moddable. Most of all, I think it has a chance to set a new standard for player-driven story generation in the genre.

Bold by me.

...Hey Puce, I got this idea where you and Trichy team up to write mods for this...

I would buy this game just for that. (Well, that and the sea serpents.)

I haven't even looked at Dungeons of Dredmor, but this looks seven shades of awesome.

Edit: Will this take Clocking full circle and make it cool again?

How is Lovecraft played out? Have there been a slew of Cthulhu games recently?
Genuinely curious.

thejustinbot wrote:

While steampunk and Lovecraft are two concepts that are terribly played out for me, I loved Dredmor and will keep my eye on this one just because it is the same studio.

duckilama wrote:

How is Lovecraft played out? Have there been a slew of Cthulhu games recently?
Genuinely curious.

I can think of a few recent examples with Lovecraftian tone (the Secret World) or parody of that tone (The new Penny Arcade game, that Magicka DLC) but I suspect he means in a more general sense. Certain niches of "geek culture" are saturated with "Cthulhu Mythos" flavored pop. It was definitely a fad for a while in certain circles (Boardgaming in particular comes to mind), though the zombie obsession certainly has taken over in prevalence.

There hasn't been a "big" Cthulhu release since Dark Corners of the Earth but there are a lot of Lovecraftian influences out there right now. As imbiginjapan said, The Secret World is a Lovecraft game in everything except name and several games have played off of the concepts as humor Cthulhu Saves the World, for example. There's also Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Lands on iOS/Android. There have been a number of adventure games with Lovecraft themes as well.

I'll take two.

meddling rich people

reminds me of this.

I haven't played Dredmor nearly enough but man, I'm so interested in this!

I did notice that this game lacks gigantic eyebrows. Guess I'll wait for the reviews after all.

duckilama wrote:

How is Lovecraft played out? Have there been a slew of Cthulhu games recently?
Genuinely curious.

thejustinbot wrote:

While steampunk and Lovecraft are two concepts that are terribly played out for me, I loved Dredmor and will keep my eye on this one just because it is the same studio.

Besides video games I'm also big into genre fiction, and all flavors of tabletop games. Fiction, board games, card games and RPGs over the past 5 years have an absolute glut of Lovecraft themed or flavored stuff. Combined with the fact that I'm not actually a very big fan of Lovecraft's work the trappings have terribly worn out their welcome for me.

I don't play tabletop games and while there are a few steampunk games on the horizon, there are precious few out right now.

I will say that steampunk has officially entered the mainstream, for better or for worse. I know this because my parents asked me what it is the other day.

I'm down for this. Can't wait to hear more about it.

No always-online DRM requirement, unlike certain other games we don’t want to mention. You know who you are and your mothers are very disappointed.

I think I may end up buying several copies. I hope they can reach their vision, because they're really dreaming big on this one.

And I still like steampunk. Fie to the haters.

I want this game, very much, and I hope they can write it quickly.

I like SimCity.

I like steampunk.

I like Dwarf Fortress.

I like modern.

I want to like Anno.

I like H.P. Lovecraft.

Not sure about oceans though.

Anyone, they've sure got my attention.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Not sure about oceans though.

You steppin, Stone?

Wet side, represent.

Lobster, oceans are full of fish pee. And lobster pee too, natch.