Clockwork Empires is a steampunk colony-building catastrophe simulator

Freshly announced from Gaslamp Games, the creators of Dungeons of Dredmor comes Clockwork Empires. This colony building sandbox game allows players to develop a city and try to keep it’s population alive as it starts on something… well… interesting. See, Clockwork Empires starts players off in a “steampunk dystopia” in the role of a Junior Bureaucrat that has been sent forth by the Empire to extend the Empire’s reach and continue spreading industry and commerce across the land.

“The player is essentially an architect of a society that’s gone a bit off the rails in an industrial revolution,” said Daniel Jacobsen, lead producer and CEO of Gaslamp Games. “The uniqueness of building this world inside the Empire is the ability of the player to do what they want, including the freedom to fail: we’ve given characters an incredibly intricate set of tools allowing them to construct a world and unleash cosmic horrors in vast, complex ways.”

Jacobsen continued, “The player is left with their own choices for his or her characters – there are rewards and consequences for each action. Eventually it unravels into a remarkably entertaining character-driven cataclysm filled with incredibly horrifying-yet-delightful possibilities – death, disease, prosperity, science and more – without a true victory condition.”

According to the fact sheet shared with us by Gaslamp Games, the game features many interesting mechanics which include:

• Build a colony and your character, each with unique histories: The colony set in a Victorian steampunk era, as well as the lower, middle and upper class characters, have their own memories and unfolding futures which are shaped by the player’s choices.

• Free-form goals: Every scenario is what the player makes of it. As the player colonizes an unknown land, objectives are handed down by “The Empire,” but they may choose to align with another factions – or none at all – if so they desire. Complete challenges to earn “Prestige,” or ignore them – there are rewards and consequences for each action.

• Cosmic Horror, Factories, Booze, Science, Farming, and more: Complete with all the elements for an industrial revolution, a colonial society pushed too far will begin to break down and unleash horrors such as cultists, marauding fish-people, axe murder, and things darker still from beyond the stars.

• Sharing and Successive Multiplayer: Supporting up to four players online, or via a turn-based ‘round robin’ successive multiplayer, the saved-game file option encourages other player Bureaucrats to further diverge histories and continue building and expanding those colonies.

Clockwork Empires will also encourage players to link together “megaprojects” through singleplayer, up to 4-player multiplayer mode, or a turn-based “round robin” style successive multiplayer saved-game option. Players will also be able to share their creations online via the Heliographic Aether, which “will allow other Bureaucrats to future diverge histories and continue building and expanding those colonies.”

Clockwork Empires is set to release in 2014 for PC, Mac, and Linux. For more information on the game, head over to www.clockworkempires.com