City of Steam: a Steampunk-ish MMO

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*To begin with, thanks go to Doyl, who gave me the permission to post this.

Hi, all! Time to get greased up for a new a steampunk-ish MMO playable in about a month (mid-July)! Mechanist Games is an indie game developer and we're now heading towards the Alpha Test stage for our first title, City of Steam. Note that I use "steampunk-ish" instead of straight up "steampunk"... Well, admittedly it's not your typical steampunk visual style. We prefer to call it “industrial fantasy”, in view of the fact that it's more of a hybrid of magic and steampunk aspects.

A little about the game:
Created in Unity 3D (with copious in-house tools, too) and lightweight enough to be accessible from your browser, City of Steam is set in a world of clock- and steamworks, pipes, gears, boilers, bridges, tunnels and towering spires, all suffering from years of neglect and abandonment. Nexus, a metropolitan city in decline, is set at the centre of a colossal mechanical world, the World Machine. This is where players set out to explore the world.

What the World Machine looks like:

(Click here to see the World Machine in 3D animation)

As you can see, the world itself is a machine, and flat to boot. The elemental gears (the Steam, Coal, Rust and Oil Spokes) are forever rotating around the Major Plate – the core of the giant machine. Each carries a season with them to the areas they pass by; i.e., the Steam Spoke carries springs to the regions it passes by, and so on.

Just a trailer that highlights the gameplay:
Get the Adobe Flash Player to see this video.

We'd be more than happy to read your input and answer any questions you may have, so post away! (love)

Edit: We have wrapped up the Alpha Test and commenced to polish up the game based on players' feedback we've collected in the Alpha Test and sifted through. We're also designing new contents to add to the game so as to get it ready for an appropriate Beta Test, which is aimed for November. For any interested in joining in, simply sign up to our newsletter to get priority on Beta keys, here: www.cityofsteam.com/get_email

10/09/2012

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Send me a PM, we'd be happy to do some coverage around this!

20/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

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Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Heller said: Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Send me a PM, we'd be happy to do some coverage around this!

PM sent. Thanks for helping us.

20/06/2012

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

How long have you guys been working on this? Give us some details :)

20/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

Kudos: 76,256

Doyl

That trailer looks nice. Really detailed main city there.
Looking forward to seeing more of this for sure.

20/06/2012

Perth - pew pew

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Heller said: How long have you guys been working on this? Give us some details

Well, as a newly established company, Mechanist Games just celebrated its first birthday about half a month ago. But if I tell you that we've been working on this for only a year, then Dave will strongly disagree with me. FYI, Dave is our GM/Lead Designer, author of the series books The New Epoch, which is what City of Steam is based on. For him everything started with ideas before 2003 that he is proud to have brought to life in the form of RPG books (many iterations that never saw the light of day) and the newest medium, City of Steam. Dave wrote up his view on the story for our fans before the sneak peek release several months ago which comes as a pretty endearing read: forum.cityofsteam.com/...

If you would like any other information or if you'd like us to conduct any form of interview, just let us know. We really want to get the word out there regarding City of Steam. :)

20/06/2012

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Doyl said: That trailer looks nice. Really detailed main city there.
Looking forward to seeing more of this for sure.

Thanks for your compliment. Actually there have been a lot of changes done to the game since the sneak peek, so we'll have a new trailer video coming out soon. Stay tuned!

20/06/2012

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

Interesting indeed. I love steam punk settings so I'm already sold! Keep us updated :)

21/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

Kudos: 354,128

Guyver

Just watched the video and it looks really good. That's some high quality detail for an Indie developer.

21/06/2012

Melbourne The land of moist beginnings

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Heller said: Interesting indeed. I love steam punk settings so I'm already sold! Keep us updated

Haha, I would keep you guys updated like every 10 minutes if I could (I kind of suspect that would get me a swift crack of the banhammer for spamming to bump the thread though) [Shifty]

Anyway, seriously, we'd be glad to answer any questions raised here. Feel free to provide your own input, too!

21/06/2012

Leave a comment

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Guyver said: Just watched the video and it looks really good. That's some high quality detail for an Indie developer.

The video was for the sneak peek several months ago. Things have been changed a lot and as I've already mentioned above, "new trailer coming out soon".

The cityscape is now more visually stunning. You may read our "Cityscape Changes" dev journal on: www.cityofsteam.com/...

We've also added more regions to the Nexus so that it looks more like a metropolitan city as we intended it to be. Do pay a visit to the Meluan's Gate if you'll get the chance to join us in the Alpha Test. It's my personal favorite. (*)

21/06/2012

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Our new trailer just came out on youtube, check it out: www.youtube.com/...

26/06/2012

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

Awesome mate, I'll post this as a news item later today!

26/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

Kudos: 76,256

Doyl

The ranger animations look fantastic!

26/06/2012

Perth - pew pew

Kudos: 45,782

iamtom

I'm looking forward to this so much!

26/06/2012

/no1

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

Definitely keen to check it out, great the devs are actively showing it off in other communities too!

26/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

Kudos: 15,125

whaling

Looks really good :D

26/06/2012

On a vessel.

Kudos: 298,781

Tano

Steampunk a new trend in games?

26/06/2012

"Niko! Cousin!"

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Heller said: Awesome mate, I'll post this as a news item later today!

Thanks for highlighting the trailer.

Heller said: Definitely keen to check it out, great the devs are actively showing it off in other communities too!

Well, although it may sound cliche, but City of Steam won't be like what it is now without the help of communities. Their feedback has actually led up to us changing a legion of the resources. City of Steam was once semi turn-based; now it's real time. The UI was once roughly put together; now it's more streamlined and user friendly. We wasn't going to support WASD to move the characters; now we do. Not to mention a slew of other concept modifications in the light of players' feedback.

Beta said: Steampunk a new trend in games?

I can't say if steampunk is a new trend in games or not, but it's definitely one of my (and many of the other City of Steam developers', too) favorite genre. I had some good time watching Castle in the Sky and Steamboy and playing Machinarium and a bunch of other steampunk games.

26/06/2012

Kudos: 186,104

Heller

I'm all for more steampunk, I love the genre.

I get a tour of the game next week, so excited!

26/06/2012

Melbourne, Victoria

Kudos: 45,782

iamtom

I follow the Facebook page religiously, I'm seriously so psyched to play this game.

Heller said: I'm all for more steampunk, I love the genre.
I get a tour of the game next week, so excited!

I will get Tano to give you some man lovin' if you show me.

26/06/2012

/no1

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

iamtom said: I follow the Facebook page religiously, I'm seriously so psyched to play this game.

I will get Tano to give you some man lovin' if you show me.

You're also welcome to join in the preview tour Heller is invited to if you're interested. [monkey](At first glance I thought this was a flying pig but the text says it's a monkey! X_X)

26/06/2012

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

IMPORTANT UPDATE - we’ve now gotten the alpha dates down to 3 weekends, starting on July 20th - 22nd, then on to July 27th – 29th, and finally August 3rd – 5th. :S

Read the announcement on: www.cityofsteam.com/...

29/06/2012

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Hey, guys. Just want to drop by and remind you all that the Alpha Test is to be released in FOUR DAYS AND 18 HOURS, that is, at 8pm on July 20th if you're looking at PDT. For more info, read our latest news release on: www.cityofsteam.com/...

As always, feel free to drop us a line.

All the best,

Dorian

16/07/2012

Kudos: 61

CoS_Dorian

Reminder - 16 hours away from releasing the Alpha Test. Don't forget to redeem your keys on: www.cityofsteam.com/... if you've got one.

If you haven't yet, here are some media sites we've partnered with in giving away the keys:

MMORPG: www.mmorpg.com/...

N4G: n4g.com/...

Gaming Climax: www.gamingclimax.com/...

Now Gamer: www.nowgamer.com/...

Gotgame: gotgame.com/...

Lazygamerz: www.lazygamerz.org/...

MMODEN: www.mmoden.com/...

P.S.: There will be NO NDA for the Alpha test so players can feel free to take screenshots and make videos and share. Have fun.

20/07/2012

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