Clockwork Empires (from Gaslamp Games)

[Gendal]

The press release:
http://www.gaslampgames.com/2012/08/...-press-release
And the relevant bullet points:

• Dynamic, city-building, citizen-simulating action. Every imperial subject has a purpose and agenda of their own, and their interactions are rich, exciting, and often lethal!
• New “procedural extrusion” technology lets you design your colony the way you want! Buildings are procedurally generated and extruded directly from the aether to your specifications!
• Tame the uncharted continents by land, sea, and air! Set forth in mighty Zeppelins to do battle with Sky Pirates, or take to the seas in search of fortune and probably sea serpents!
• Create magnificent acts of plumbing, link together mighty gears, and build ominous Megaprojects!
• Tangle with the machinations of malevolent entities! Scry the legacy of the Invisible Geometers, fumigate the baleful moon-fungus of the Selenian Polyps, and cleanse the scuttling creepiness and poor personal and moral hygiene of your everyday, average cultist.
• Losing is still fun! When your colony fails miserably, earn medals, promotions, and titles as befits a true politician and scion of the Empire!
• Multi-player mode, with up to 4 players, lets you co-operate with your closest friends to build a glorious city… or fight a horrifying economic battle to total annihilation!
• Round-Robin mode lets you share your Clockwork Empires with friends! Take turns running a colony directly into the ground then argue for fun-filled hours about whose fault it was! (Like Monopoly but with more exploding Zeppelins!)
• Rendered in glorious GaslampVision! Thrill as the colours are brought to life by Gaslamp’s team of caffeine-addled artists labouring under the technical specifications of our elite programmers* to bring you a game that is rendered in Each of the Three Dimensions! New multi-core technology by Actual University Students lets you use every last ounce of power in your computer to run a thrilling and vivid simulation!
• (* We’ll see about that, Nicholas. Soon. – David)
• Featuring the new Dynamic Soundtrack Orchestra – the Soundtrack that Adjusts to Your Gameplay! (Mr. M. Steele, conductor)
• 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.
• Comes complete with the Gaslamp Games Quality of Excellence that you know and love, and if you don’t like something you can mod it yourself in the best tradition of Empire Craftsmanship!

They had me at hot "Dynamic, city-building, citizen-simulating action" with ominous Megaprojects ramping up my desire even further.

The press release has a link to PC Gamer which has some screenshots:
http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/cloc...-city-builder/

Or at least I think they are screenshots; it's so heavily antialiased or blurred or resized it kind of looks like a painting.
Edit: Not screenshots according to dbaum, but rendered in game assetts. Which explains the extreme antialiasing.

[Razgon]

Now *that* sounds awesome! Thanks for the heads up!

[Gendal]

So it's obviously inspired in part by Dwarf Fortress, right down to the awesome implementation of Round-Robin mode. No more trying to zip up and pass around a set of saves it sounds like.

Theme wise it sounds like it's Steampunk meets Lovecraft. Which I am cool with. Maybe even excited.

[Telefrog]

They had me at Gaslamp Games.

[Lynxara]

Couldn't get into Dwarf Fortress, but I'll happily try this one.

[Gendal]

They had me at Gaslamp Games.

Well yes, duh. I was just trying to act impartial or something.

Couldn't get into Dwarf Fortress, but I'll happily try this one.

If ever there was a game that was worth the effort, Dwarf Fortress is it. But yes, that's a helluva lot of effort. In the mean time I recommend checking out Towns and Gnomoria if you want to see two very different takes on the DF genre; both are very playable though obviously still beta.

[Alstein]

Sounds awesome- especially after Dredmor.

[Tyjenks]

If only they had set their sights high.

[Brian Rubin]

Oohhhh, sounds fascinating. Want now plz.

[dbaum]

Btw, to be clear, those aren't screenshots - they're just renders of game assets. (Though the citizens are getting heads redone at 2x that quality.)

Also it's good to be able to talk about this, finally!

Edit: Oh, and I can answer questions, finally, if you've got any. Do note that this IS pretty early in development so there's a lot I can't give a hard answer about.

[Giaddon]

Looks good. I'm glad Dwarf Fortress tributaries are finally appearing and giving the dormant city building genre a shot in the arm.

[Shadari]

Sounds really cool! Are those screenshots legit? The graphics look light years more advanced than Dredmor.

[biosc1]

They had me at Gaslamp Games.

My money, where do I send my gobs of money!

[Tyjenks]

Btw, to be clear, those aren't screenshots - they're just renders of game assets. (Though the citizens are getting heads redone at 2x that quality.)

Also it's good to be able to talk about this, finally!

Edit: Oh, and I can answer questions, finally, if you've got any. Do note that this IS pretty early in development so there's a lot I can't give a hard answer about.

I can only assume that the guy who pimped Dredmor first time here at Qt3 gets in on Alpha/Beta action. Whoever that was.

Aside from that, all I got is good luck wishes. Bold step and a direction I could not have made up in my wildest dreams. Happy for you guys and here's to the expectations, which are already nigh unattainable.

[TurinTur]

In each one of the three dimensions?! Oh boy! :D

[Mr Bismarck]

[lordkosc]

This indeed does look GLORIOUS!

:O

[jpinard]

Daaammnnnnn! OK, this is way better than what I expected to hear. AWESOME!!

[Nightgaunt]

Oh, hell yes. Good luck to Gaslamp making this happen. Very ambitious follow-up to Dredmore, I've gotta say. I love that in trying to adapt Dwarf Fortress they have not only avoided making just another fantasy setting, but they've made a really unique setting seems to fit so well with the goals and mechanics of the game--imperialism, industry, and secret things that will eventually kill you.

Yummy yummy yummy.

[RepoMan]

I wish this was a Kickstarter so I could give them $50 in a fit of enthusiasm and then guiltily reduce to $15 after they make their goal.

[Blips]

Sounds awesome. I'm kind of hoping for a more serious tone than Dredmor however.

[ineffablebob]

Sounds awesome. I'm kind of hoping for a more serious tone than Dredmor however.

That seems highly unlikely. The tail end of the PC Gamer article:

There’s a heap more to share, more than I can carve into a single article. I haven’t touched on Clockwork’s volatile inversion of Civ-style Wonders: “inherently dangerous” Megaprojects. I haven’t talked about how booze and opium products can help fend off madness in your citizens. I haven’t mentioned the significance of volcanoes as power sources, meddling rich people, badger attacks, or aetheric ray guns.

Personally, I have no problem with this. There's plenty of "serious games", most of which I won't spend my money on. This, I will.

[dbaum]

@Blips
Yeah, we're aiming for a more consistent and somewhat serious tone. Don't expect to see 'tons of wacky references' ... unless you're a big fan of 19th century pseudoscience and Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, & so forth.

Edit: I should clarify what I mean by "somewhat serious" -- it's somewhat serious /compared to Dredmor/. We're actually still working out the details of tone in the writing and I'm sure it'll be changing up 'til release.

@Tyjenks
Thanks! As for alphas and such, well, we're a while out yet but we had a good experience doing it like that for Dredmor so we'll probably do it again.

@RepoMan
Haha - thanks?
We're not doing a Kickstarter because we don't actually need it. ... Yet? Naw, should be fine. Dredmor did good for us.

@Shadari
Thanks! As said, those shots are renders of art assets rather than screenshots, but the screenshots will look lovely when they're something to look at, of course.
Nicholas (our 'Technical Director') is actually, secretly, primarily a 3d graphics coder and has been terribly repressed throughout the development of Dredmor.

[Benhur]

OMG this game is being made just for me! Sorry if already posted, but I didn't see it - any ETA on when this comes out?

[Tyjenks]

OMG this game is being made just for me! Sorry if already posted, but I didn't see it - any ETA on when this comes out?

I saw floating around "second half 2013 with a heavy emphasis on 'when it's done'". As I stated elsewhere, in translating development speak, I am going with 1st quarter 2014. ;)

[Ed Solomon]

@Blips
Yeah, we're aiming for a more consistent and somewhat serious tone. Don't expect to see 'tons of wacky references' ... unless you're a big fan of 19th century pseudoscience and Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, & so forth.

Ha! But I am a big fan of 19th century pseudoscience, Verne, and Wells. So I shall be expecting plenty of wacky references. And I'm with ineffablebob, I want crazy.

[Wolff]

Sign me up for alpha alpha testing!

[malkav11]

Citybuilders tend to bounce off me, at least since the first couple of SimCity games and of course LucasArts' wonderful Afterlife (which I never, ever got a positive income going in). But this is one of the best concepts for one I've heard and despite my complaints I do love Dredmor, so I will undoubtedly take a whack at it.

[Universal Leader]

Holy crap, this sounds like a China Mieville novel simulator.

[Warren]

From the article:

“If you’ve got a whole bunch of people researching in a building and you just sort of leave them to it and you don’t keep tabs on them, there’s a high probability that they can start doing evil things and summoning demons or something,” says Jacobsen.

With that kind of idea, color me excited.

The thing that comes to mind is with the detailed and thought out yet barely constrained chaos Dredmor was, the feature list they are showing only leads me to believe that this title promises to be glorious in the same vein.