Tag Archives: Steampunk
Screenshot Feature: Steam Squad!
An alt-history wargame with some interesting graphics ~
Michael Eckenfels, 17 August 2016
If you’ve fantasized about a Steampunk game set during an era when humanity was actually just starting to leave steam-powered technology behind, you’re in luck. You’re even more in luck because the game is called “Steam Squad,” and is at heart a point-and-click, real-time tactical combat game set during World War I.
GrogHeads Interviews Terry Sofian of Hive, Queen and Country
We connected at Origins, and continued the electronic conversation afterwards ~
Corinne Mahaffey, 30 July 2016
I sat down for an email interview with Terry Sofian, the creator of Hive, Queen and Country, a steampunk world where the European powers are, with the help of the mineral aerolith, extending their imperial reach to the rest of the solar system. They recently ran a 3 day game at Origins wherein a hive in Brazil was besieged by American and British forces.
What are your games and world about?
Our games are about telling stories in an altered Victorian era, one in which the already stunning challenges of exploring frontiers on six continents, the seas and the polar ice cap, making scientific discoveries that fashioned the world in which we live today and developing amazing new technologies, are compounded with air and space travel and explorations both in deep space but also on several worlds within our solar system. The stories can be about fighting hordes of angry alien bugs. They could be about building a city on Venus. Perhaps they are about solving murder mysteries on any of a number of worlds.
The Hive, Queen and Country Universe was started as a sandbox in which a bunch of folks could get together to and discuss ideas set in such an altered time line. We designed the Universe to be a place where gamers, writers, artists, model builders and any other creative types could build “sand castles”. The games and world are designed to provide a framework for people to work within.
HQC in action at Origins
GrogHeads Reviews
The Cinder Spires: the Aeronaut’s Windlass
Airboy reviews Jim Butcher’s Steampunk series opener ~
Avery Abernethy, 22 February 2016
The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher is an action packed, steampunk influenced start to a new series. The population inhabits “spires” which are huge cities on large towers above the surface of the planet. The surface world is too dangerous for ordinary people but contains valuable resources and vicious animal life.
The major power technology are crystals. Tiny crystals provide light and minor power. Major crystals which are almost impossible to create can power large airships. Envision wooden Man-O-War flying through the air with cannons and inefficient power lasers. Hand weapons are hand sized power crystals and sabers. There are strange creatures, rare and unbalanced magic users who understand how crystals work, and daring traders, naval fleets and privateers flying the skies.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #87
And on the Frith Day, he gave us GARPA! ~
7th Sea, Second Ed (John Wick)
$481k of $30k, ends 13 March 2016
Another project that blew through its funding goal so fast that it almost feels like they’re just making up stretch goals as they go. 7th Sea was a beloved RPG that was popular in the early 00’s, in large part because the world of Theah was such a fantabulous setting. The creator now has the rights to his game back, and is updating all the material for re-publication, and by the looks of it, there’s a few thousand people that can’t wait to get back on the train. Sail over to their Kickstarter page and marvel at the depths of their stretch goals and drop your doubloons on your own pledge.
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #84
Give us a break… we’ve been watching football all day ~
Forgotten War, The Korean War ASL (MMP)
Preorder price $96
ASL goes to Korea… officially! Seriously, what else do you need to know. OK, how about what’s in the box? 7 countersheets and 4 maps, plus a bunch of rules additions. Now, the caveat – you need the ASL base rules to play, so in addition to your $96 here, you still need a bunch of other stuff to play. But hey, you can finally get off the Eastern front, or the beaches of Normandy, or wherever you’ve been treading water in your ASL games. Storm over to MMP’s site and place your pre-order and re-fight the first conventional battles of the Cold War.
