Mr Branitar pointed out these very nice and chunky wargame/roleplay miniatures from Terraform Battlefield Scenery – there’s a good dozen or so interchangable low-tech steam walkers, tracked vehicles and quadropedic war machines that tower over the standard infantry models. The one above is called Frank ‘N Steam (I kid you not) and is possibly my favourite of the bunch. Some have wooden legs, some are more bulbous in shape, but I’m sure they’d be just the thing in a more military-themed Steampunk game. Lovely riveted details – thanks Mr Branitar!

When I posted about another gear based game a while ago, Mr Moores remembered a little flash game that he’d encountered in the past that he thought I might like – Gear Puzzle. It’s a simple little game, where I had to use trial and error mostly – but I warn you, when you bring down the cage, imagine that the lock on the base has broken, but the cage is still heavy. You may know what to do then (because getting the cage down isn’t the whole story). What we need now is a cog/gear game where the actual gear ratios make a difference, hmm. Thanks, Mr Moores!

In 1993, the Bitmap Brothers released a cooperative action game on the Amiga called The Chaos Engine. Apparently inspired by the release of The Difference Engine in 1990, it featured a somewhat brilliant but unhinged Victorian scientist creating a machine so powerful that it could warp time and space itself. Alas, it turned against its creator and 6 mercenaries have been hired to do away with the machine, and the automata that it is creating to defend itself.

What that means, is that one or two players choose characters (Navvie, Thug, Gentleman, Mercenary, Brigand and Preacher/Scientist) and go out and shoot anything that moves in a top down blastfest with upgrades and weapons such as the pistol, shotgun and lightning cannon. I remember playing this half an age ago, and it was great fun and really came to life as a two player game (I’m sure many people have fond memories of it) – I didn’t think of it as Steampunk originally, but that can’t really be helped as it was very soon after even the name Steampunk had been invented. Very good game, and had quite the following! (Thanks for the reminder, Mr Beaty – hope your moonbase is coming along nicely.)

Ah – I’d forgotten all about the games at the McCord Museum, so a deep thank you to Ms. Lev for reminding me. Over at the Musee McCord page, you’ll find all manner of interesting historical information with no small amount of that devoted to the 19th Century. Two things that I did enjoy on this page, however, were their Victorian themed flash games – one all about manners for men and ladies in the Victorian era (I did rather well at this) and another that Ms. Lev pointed out to me, on the photographic activities and requirements of the age. With an animation style very reminiscient of Monty Python, these are quite good fun and suceed in being educational at the same time. I did find that the photography game froze on me twice, but I’ve had no such problems with the manners game.

Thank you, Ms. Lev – I’d forgotten all about these!

So, this is a strange one, and I’m having trouble finding out more, however reader Mr M Adams very kindly let me know that there’s was a game system called Virtual World that has had centres across North America which run ran networked games of BattleTech. Now, that wouldn’t be all that interesting, except there’s a peculiar Steampunk side to it – apparently at least some of the centres (it may be all, I’m having trouble dredging information) are of a Mars-based Steampunk theme, with adventurer lounges outside the gaming area, complete with dinosaur skulls for decoration. Mr Adams admits to enjoying a glass of Martian ale in such a lounge. The above image, for example, is supposed to be one of the first ‘trans dimensional vehicles’ – done in a very Steampunk style (quartz windows and rivets everywhere).
Alas, I am told that the Steampunk is only skin deep, and that once you’re inside your ‘pod’ and gaming, it’s just plain old BattleTech and not very themed at all. However, if anyone else knows more about this, or indeed has links so that I may further my knowledge on this, I’d be most interested to hear. What fun it would be to make a real Steampunk equivalent! Especially as modding tools and amateur game development becomes ever nearer the end user.

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You’ve probably heard of Second Life, and indeed many of you may have gone to visit it to see what all the fuss was about (I did, many months ago) but I didn’t know at the time that there was a specifically Steampunk/19th Century themed area called The Independant State of Caledon.

I remember being seriously underwhelmed when I first visited Second Life – it seemed to be slow, ugly and full of ‘cybering’, and none of those were what I’d hoped for in this user-created-content world. However, I have to say that Caledon has turned me around – Caledon (and the various zones therein) is a beautifully designed, consistantly themed area with some real thought and love put into it. I felt quite ashamed to be wandering around in newbie jeans and t-shirt when I would catch glimpses of other avatars in period clothing. The diversity is a true example of what Second Life should thrive at – from little ivy-coated stone cottages on a snowy beach, to giant Swiss Family Robinson style treehouses in mahogany and stained glass, to floating islands chained to the complaining earth, to an unnassuming Zeppelin gallery, to the above two-up two-down redstone house with impeccable detail.

There are flaws to it, of course – being user created there are some areas much weaker than others, some places that look empty, rough or just badly made, but they are in the minority. I was sorry that I didn’t encounter any of the community or activity that Caledon is quite well known for, as it was it seemed somewhat of a lovely ghost town.

But should you choose to visit (and it’s free to sign up for Second Life and wander about) then I recommend going to Caledon VictoriaCity first to see some of the shops, and to take advantage of the free gifts stalls so that you can get out of your jeans and t-shirt as quickly as possible. After that, I can recommend Caledon II for some interesting sightseeing; the Zeppelin Gallery and the Tesla Society tower (you can’t miss it – it sparks).

And if anyone here is a long standing resident of Caledon, I’d love to hear from you what you love about Caledon, and what the social side to that pretty city is. (Thanks to Krzysiek for reminding me about Second Life, and for wondering what this Caledon thing was.)

Finally for tonight, Gear Works a gear-building puzzle game for the Amiga. Now, I’ve not played this particular one (I couldn’t find the gear puzzle game I’d been looking for) but this one has you solving levels of puzzles by placing gears down to connect two or more important gears. Your aim, is to fix several landmarks from around the world – Big Ben, for example. I may see if I can give this a go later, as it sounds like a little bit of fun – more structured/limiting than say The Impossible Machine, but as you may have noticed I do have a terrible weakness for cogs.

Ok, so not terribly steampunk at all, but I like the conceit of your little buggy rolling and bouncing over giant sillouetted cogs as a level. Shadow Factory would be more precisely seen as a sci-fi nuclear-inspired side scrolling buggy game with giant cogs – and it’s very bouncy indeed. Who’d have thought driving a buggy over massive cogs (or maybe the buggy is tiny?) would be so tricky. Thankyou D Dodson, it’s certainly good for a few minutes of fun! The cogs are rather well drawn, too.

My thanks to Mr J Svensson who pointed out the above game, Metronome, to me (though it seems it’s been on Retrostacja’s link page for a while). Made by the Swedish game developers, Tarsier Studios, it’s a third person adventure that reeks of graphical style not terribly unlike a cartoonish version of something inspired by the film Delicatessen. It’s an alternative world where the Corporation rules all things, and steam engines and giant switchboards dominate a city where people just can’t help but work.
The main ‘trick’ to the game, however, must be its reliance on sound – a puzzle system where each sound can be recorded and used to manipulate the world around you. Sounds (no pun intended) most interesting, but to my sorrow the game has gone all quiet. It seems that since a good showing at E3, they’ve yet to pick up a publisher to run with the game, and it languishes unloved. There’s little information, but you can find a trailer here, along with screenshots and the official site (as yet unopened). Looks nice, and I wish them all the best in their quest for a publisher. I wonder what a Metrognome is…

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Mr. Nicodemus Mannerings kindly sends word of a roleplaying game system that he encountered at his local gaming convention – called Passages – which seems very amusingly tongue in cheek and variably Steampunk. Why variably? Well it seems to allow you to base your adventures off the most famous of Victorian era literature – thus the above image (taken from an upcoming adventure all about the Jabberwocky) is obviously inspired deeply by the Alice in Wonderland stories. Note the piece of toast in the Mad Hatters pocket. But I simply must quote some of the descriptive text, it’s really rather amusing:

“The only Game Preparation of agreeable taste to all palates, and an excellent substitute for Cod-Liver oil. Prescribed by eminent practitioners to lymphatic and scrofulous children; to adolescents for troubles associated with growth, amenorrhoea, etc.; to adults for asthma, syphilis, and female hysteria; and to all ages for chronic bouts of ennui.”

Female hysteria? chuckles Not sure a roleplay game can do much for that, but I digress – it’s a humerously written and quite appealing roleplay system, if only for the tone of the writing. It seems to be quite rule and roll light, and mentions by name the opportunity to be at the helm of the Nautilus – so our favourite authors do not seem forgotten.