We have finally returned from GDC! (Except David, who, lacking the smartphone that, apparently, every other 21st century human possesses, is wandering around the Bay Area stopping only to sleep & quietly feed in secret Vegan Safehouses.) We had a great time (except for that one thing), drank with a lot of people, and went to a number of fascinating talks about new opportunities in the Free-to-Play gaming market on mobile, Android devices.
We were also able to sign some deliciously long-simmering business deals at GDC, and have secured additional funding for our work from various interested parties, including a Major Console Developer. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to fully leverage our suite of intellectual properties in the next-generation console and mobile spaces. In order to uniquely leverge our leverage, we have “revamped” Clockwork Empires in order to make it more suitable for next-generation consoles. Market-driven research, made possible by our new funding, has revealed that gamers don’t actually enjoy complex simulations or sandbox-based gameplay. Instead, they want two things out of their videogame dollars:
- To be connected with, emotionally, at an intense, raw, and devastating level that can only be made possible by next-generation consoles.
- Gears, possibly attached to turrets.
As you guys know, we at Gaslamp pride ourselves in taking a genre and putting our unique, zany spin on it. To this end, uh… let’s just do a press release.
April 1st, 2013 — Gaslamp Games, makers of the popular cooking minigame Dungeons of Dredmor, is proud to announce:
Blood & Steam: A Clockwork Empires Game
* * *
Join the ruggedly strong-jawed & generically handsome brown-haired twentysomething Corporal Lance Wingerstrong of Her Majesty’s 3rd Steam Knights Brigade on a quest for Queen and Country — and revenge. Lance must regain his family’s honour and in the process uncover the grand conspiracies of the villainous Stahlmarkian Baron known as Axel Helmut Kupferrad Von Schwarzezug as he attempts to find a shorter name for himself (the Baron, that is, Corporal Wingerstrong has a stout Clockworkian name that any upstanding lad of the Empire would be proud to bear) at any cost.
* * *
“Clockwork Empires is such a promising IP,” notes Gaslamp Games’ CEO Daniel Jacobsen, “that it would be a shame to just make one game out of it. It’s a natural step to expand the adrenaline-pumping, city-building action of Clockwork Empires into the realm of first person turret sequence shooters.”
“Maybe I’ve just been huffing oven cleaner this week,” he added slyly from atop his throne made of human skulls, “but I am really excited about corridors. Corridors full of steam! And maybe some pipes.”
Technical Director Nicholas Vining has employed his experience working with The Goddamned Lithtech Engine to design photo-realistic, paradigm-shattering next-generation graphics. Mr. Vining was unavailable for comment, having accidentally dropped himself into a parallel universe in a paradigm-shattering accident, but a note on his desk indicates that he was very excited about “inflamed follicle rendering technology” and “glistening cubes of meat.”
With exciting new weapons powered by steam, aether, clockwork, and derring-do players will experience deep and long-lasting Emotional Stories about Characters and Things or Whatever as they totally blow away wave after wave of Stahlmarkian Blitztroopers.
David Baumgart, art director of Gaslamp Games explains: “oh god hrrrrrp” and then vomited, weakly, into a bucket of wine coolers. This is because he is an Artist and therefore Volatile during Press Release Writing Sessions (and at all other times generally), but we are trying to understand his intent; Possibly something about a “gyrocopter boss fight”.
GROUNDBREAKING FEATURES LIST:
- Nearly 6 hours of next-gen cog-spinning, steam-simmering high-pressure gameplay!
- Turrets!
- Deploy ten exciting new FPS weapons, including the Gear Spinfusor, the Portable Tesla Coil, the SimCity Authentication Server, and the Big ****ing Gear!
- Put Gears on Everything! Put Gears on your Gear! (Additional gears available through our Gear Store for reasonably-priced Digglebucks.)
- Deploy Zeppelin Strikes to Punish Your Enemies… With Zeppelins! (Tiny ones, driven by Diggles.)
- Realistic Steampunk Guns (which players can purchase through our partnership with Perfectly Ethical arms manufacturers!)
- Dynamic exploding organ physics!
- Day-1 Expansion DLC allows you to join Her Majesty’s Anti-Paranormal Invigilators For Horrifying Missions against the Selenian Moon-Fungus!
- Tap “Q” repeatedly at any time to snub rivals in your squad!
- Tap “Q” once to do other things!
- Turrets!
- Redeem organs for additional emotional devastation!
- Deep moral simulations allow players to define the character of Corporal Wingerstrong in keys areas of Uprightness, Temperance, and Forthrightness.
- Choose one of three endings by pulling one of three levers at the end of the game! (The levers are attached to gears. Also, maybe, turrets.)
- Over 10,000 procedurally generated achievements to unlock!
- Always-on Internet connection required to interface with the live Clockwork Auction House!
- Gaslamp’s unique dual key authentication system: two Gaslamp employees stand behind the player as the game is booted and must simultaneously insert and turn a pair of unique activation keys.
- New unit duplication technology reports that you have shot more Stahlmarkian Blitztroopers than we can actually simulate you shooting at!
- And the enemies that you do shoot at probably just teleport from place to place!
- Historically Accurate Simulation of Steam Powered Armour Combat created with an approving nod by actual veterans of the Great Antipodean Obeliskian Campaign raised from the dead by our team of wild-eyed Novyrus Volticians just for this purpose!
- Emotional devastation can be converted to Digglebucks!
- Turrets!
- Special Guest Star: Beyonce!
- Turrets!
Coming soon, exclusively to a yet-unnamed next generation console: BLOOD & STEAM: A CLOCKWORK EMPIRES GAMES GAME OF GAMES
Edit:
- Tacked-on Multiplayer!
Sounds legit. There will, I assume, be Quicktime Events? PLEASE TELL ME THERE WILL BE QUICKTIME EVENTS?!?!?
Over 10,000 procedurally generated achievements to unlock!
The sad thing is this sounds insane enough to be a good idea. I wonder what the metacritic group would think about this. XD
Exploding organ physics realistically model the flight trajectory of ivory keys.
Any chance of getting “always online DRM” for this game? Maybe as a DLC? Thanks!
I’d play this.
Guys, this clearly is no fake. Note that it says “serious business, serious games” in the tags! Cannot wait!
Sounds very nice. Please consider adding quick time events.
Okay, you got me. I’m barely awake, but my blood pressure is far from heaven or hell.
I love the orange light on the armour, nice touch.
So when is this amazing game coming out? November 31 2014?
Honestly it took me an embarrassingly long time.
You forgot to mention turrets.
Oh, and:
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/241/796/cac.png
I love you guys, please never change.
^^ This. QQQQQQQQ
how would you use a simcity server as a weapon? throw it? Force log off other players?
Will I be able to purchase Iron Scopes in the Totally Unexpensive Microtransaction Store ?
Also : that cover lacks some sparks. Gamers loves sparks.
Will the weaponized SimCity Authentication Server be available in turret-form, and is that a Real Thing that North Korea has in development?
sorry, my cat made me do it -_-
Well, I didn’t realize it was April 1st yet when I read this. It almost wasn’t in my time zone. And then after two paragraphs it dawned on me.
*slow clap*
I tip my cap, good sirs!
Wait, you hired a PR person?
Count me scared, I can’t force myself imagine a kind of PR person you’d hire.
Also, hello, PR-person! 0/
Don’t forget cutscenes – you need at least one super duper high resolution (beyond awesome!) graphically rendered cutscene every ten minutes. It is the law!
Now my main concern is will the gas lamp employee’s stick around to watch me play so that my emotional devastation is witnessed and can be easily converted to digglebucks? Or will I have to deal with beyonce to get them?
I may consider buying it only if you assure us that there will be disc-locked content that we can pay to unlock. and microtransactions please, we really need a huge selection of hats.
I am deeply troubled by this development.
Nowhere in your press release do you mention a tacked on multiplayer mode. Are you not going to include multiplayer?! Surely you know that all games require multiplayer.
Fixed.
The Wargames two-keys thing totally destroyed me. I’m still giggling. I think my girlfriend is concerned that I’ve been possessed. Possibly by Japanese chibi spirits.
Will it be Origin exclusive?
You know, a steampunk shooter from you guys actually sounds pretty fun.
But I will be SERIOUSLY disappointed if there are no diggle zeppelins in CWE. Seriously.
Where is the post introducing the new PR Person!?
DLC and micro transactions, nothing excites me more than a business model! Where do I pre-order?
the SimCity Authentication Server!! My favorite feature! I can’t wait!
The SimCity Authentication Server! I can’t wait for this feature!
Note to Gaslamp Games: You can bypass reCaptcha by only doing a portion of the captcha.
The emotional devastation will be enhanced by the SimCity Authentication Server for enhanced emotional devastation.
It usually is.
Every announcement brighten up my day. Thanks Gaslamp!
Will there be a limited edition Diggle Armour TM* DLC?
*only visible during story intro quicktime events.
“Tap “Q” repeatedly at any time to snub rivals in your squad!
Tap “Q” once to do other things!”
Considering that I’m just playing through mass effect again, this killed me. =P
Y’know…a steampunk FPS actually sounds like a cool idea. You could make some really creative weapons, enemy types, and levels from it. The best setup would probably be as a Bioshock or Deus Ex-esque system where you could get upgrades for gadgets and weapons
Wait…will there be turrets, or not?
LOL
I love it. And having just gotten back into DoD again, just have to say, this game is freaking amazing!
Shut up and take all of my money in micro-transactions before the game is even released.
I do hope this game is buggy even after millions of betas, I love bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. Especially bugs with GEARS on them. That’d be mind blowing.
What about the loading screens!?!? every game needs good loading screens, how else will players get to see all the cool ideas and artwork that never actually made it into the game?
Research shows that loading screens are worth hours of gameplay, especially when they take hours!
Does it have a massively single player online campaign mode???????
How can a game be good if we’re running our extremely complicated NPC AI locally??? (read: just a broken pathfinding implementation)
I DEMAND MORE LATENCY IN SINGLE PLAYER MODE!!!
might be april fools if… oh wait..