I've never really given steampunk much thought, or attention. My closest and most intimate relationship with it is probably a good twenty years old, playing a fair amount of The Chaos Engine - the top-down shoot-em-up thingy smeared with Victoriana.
Now, as we are floating through space in a presumably steam-driven spacecraft, being attacked by presumably steam-driven evil robots, armoured in presumably steam-driven power-suits, I can afford to give it a little more thought. Is Victoria still on the throne? And if she is, is that because there was an overnight technological breakthrough that allowed for giant robots and space travel - or did it develop over many years whilst Victoria was kept young by a presumably steam-driven youth-machine? What does the facial hair of my male Marines look like under those helmets, and are the women wearing whale-bone corsets?
We don't get to find out any of those things yet, with Steam Marines being firmly in Alpha development the exposition and story are only hinted at through the artwork and the occasional quip from a Marine, presented as part of the normal game.
This game unashamedly calls itself a roguelike, and therefore by my reckoning it unashamedly IS a roguelike. It's not really anything like Rogue, though (go figure) but it IS turn-based. Instead of the single protagonist, you get four. These are the titular Steam Marines, and at the start of a new game, you can build up your squad as you see fit from a choice of four different types of Marine.
These are:
Leader - Has a shotgun (short range, medium damage, with knockback) and some reasonable armour. As the leader character develops with experience, s/he gains talents that generally aid the group.
Scout - Has a long range, accurate rifle (longer range, medium damage) and light armour. Typically has the most 'Action Points' of any class, allowing for the most number of actions in a turn.
Grenadier - Has a grenade launcher (area of effect damage) and heavy armour. Typically slower than the Leader, the grenades are useful for softening up groups of enemies.
Support - A high damage machine gun allows it to pick individual targets off quickly. With similar AP per turn (typically) to a Grenadier, and a 2AP cost to fire, sometimes difficult to use effectively - but can be devastating when a Support Marine is in the right place at the right time.
As hinted at, each Marine gains experience individually, and as s/he level up gets to take 'talents' (skills usable at a set cost to AP) and stat increases to make them better soldiers.
Movement, and firing, are limited to the cardinal directions only, and all of the procedurally generated spaceship is destructable. Individual Marines get a number of Actions Points per turn, and APs are used up by firing, changing facing (without moving), moving, using items and deploying talents. The cardinal movement / firing limitation allows for simple player analysis of each turn and the interface is slick enough that you can execute your plans easily.
Mouse support is in, and works well, although it is not forgiving if you accidentally click somewhere that you didn't mean to when you are moving your little warriors. I get the impression that this game is currently supposed to be primarily played with the keyboard, and there are handy shortcut keys for doing just about anything you would expect to (press 't' to get a tutorial overlay to explain the main things). Laptops fare well without a numpad, as you only need the four drectional keys for movement.
Each mission has a primary goal (e.g. 'get to the elevator' or 'kill all enemies') and a secondary goal, which may be significantly harder to achieve (e.g. 'knock an enemy out in to space'). You are then tasked to carry out this goal to each mission, through exploring every last corner of the space ship and dealing with enemies as you encounter them. Currently, as far as I have played the game, enemies appear to be pretty passive until you spot them (or they spot you, I guess), and they generally are not able to outrun your Marines. This puts you in a position whereby you should not (if you are playing cautiously enough) ever get caught out. Of course, it never works like that, and God help you when you think to yourself; "Yeah, I've got two shots left on that flamejack. I'll take him out.".
Because the almighty RNG will take umbrage with your arrogance, and you will get burnt.
Later levels promise 'boss' monsters, so I hear, although I haven't got there yet. There is also an interesting mechanic in place throughout a normal level where the evil robots 'teleport' about the place using grates in the floor. Once you realise this is the case, it makes you extra cautious in watching your back, as you could get ambushed at any moment.
A 'Guard' switch allows your Marine to end their turn (using up all APs) and enter in to an 'Overwatch' mode, and along with the various items, talents and the initial squad selection, there are a wide variety of tactical options available for you to choose how you play this game - which only increases as you get further and further in to the game. Permadeath (by squad member) means you want to keep your guys alive, to retain the benefits of the higher level talents,
And the game looks SO good. The pixel art is excellent and the visual design aesthetic - through the characters, tiles, backgrounds, details and level generation to the UI and the title screen - are wonderfully coherent and it all resonates with itself. It just works, and is a pleasure to play.
As far as the game goes, I really enjoy it, however I think with something that offers such 'simplicity' that this will really come in to its own when all the features get implemented and the developer does some serious iterative tuning of all the relevant gameplay mechanics (although, for an alpha, it is surprisingly well balanced). It lacks the feature sprawl of something as wild as NetHack or IVAN, but in this is an opportunity to create something super-tight and finely-balanced and I'm hugely excited to see where it goes.
I have given it a little nudge in it's quest for a Verdant Glow of a Vapourous Nature (which sounds far more Steampunk than Steam Greenlight). You should check it out and maybe do the same.
http://www.worthlessbums.com/forums/index.php - The Forums
http://www.steammarines.com/ - The Website
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