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[Darkmere]

** Important Notes for potential Earliest Access Adopters **

This is a VERY unfinished version right now, with lots of things disabled. If you are uncomfortable with such a early feature-incomplete version, the best option is to hold off for a while until more things are added in. If you are still undeterred:

I've done a quick n dirty write-up of the basics in this post. It will be updated/appended if Fun Things are brought to my attention. Good luck!

** End Notes Here **

Step right up, citizens! Prepare for the Opportunity of a Lifetime*! Her Majesty's Colonial Resettlement Program wants YOU to spread Word of the Glorious Cog to the Far-Reaching Savagery of Foreign Lands. Become a Governor! Menace and/or be menaced by Fish-People! Tremble in Awe at the Fearsome Might of Her Majesty's Steam Knight Regiments! Explore Wondrous Geometries and tame Fearsome Wildlife! Register at once at the nearest Office for the Shuffling of Unmentionables!

_{*Her Majesty's Colonial Resettlement Program makes no guarantees as to the length of said lifetime. Her Majesty's Colonial Resettlement Program is not responsible for any Grievous Harm to Body or Sanity incurred in the Savage Wildlands. No Refunds available. Colonial Contract is binding under Penalty of Death.}

What's this all about, then?
Clockwork Empires is a colony builder in the vein of Gnomoria, Goblin Fortress, and some project I've heard of called Dwarf Fortress. It's brought to you by the fine folks over at Gaslamp Games, purveyors of Dungeons of Dredmor.

The game features a steampunk pastiche of the colonial era with a large smattering of eldritch geometries, elder gods, madness, and cabbages. You take on the role of Colonial Governor to balance the needs of your people with the good of the empire. Sounds like a jolly good time, eh, wot?

And this Earliest Access Chicanery? Do tell!
Right, the game's now offering Earliest Access, which is EVEN EARLIER than Early Access. What does that mean for the savvy consumer?
Well, there's a detailed development roadmap available here for your perusal.
An Earliest Access explanation blog is available here.
If that was convincing enough for you, the order page is available here, along with a trailer that will most certainly not damage your sanity. At all.

[ScriptWolf]

Yes yes yes yes yes steam punk colony game Fuck yes!!

[Digital Hellhound]

Preview on PC Gamer. They cite DF as their main influence, pretty much.

[Girlinhat]

They definitely know their target audience.  Bay 12 is their entire target audience, it seems.  And they nailed it.

Also:

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.

All my money.

[ScriptWolf]

I'm likeing this game so much more with every word, I just hope that we can push our scientists to go and summon demons and create horrific steam cyborg demon monster things and generally go crazy

[Errol]

Considering the boatload of DF references in DoD, I am not particularily surprised.
I am also readying my Fry image macros...

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!

YES YES YES YES YES

[Viken]

As a big fan of victorian-style steampunk, mad sciences and totally out-there ideas; I like it very much indeed.

[ScriptWolf]

I hope there will be a beta.

Also a bit more this idea seems brilliant even more so when playing multiplayer games!
Failure will also leave its marks on the game world, even when you wipe a colony completely. This originates from a small element of persistency: when you generate a game world, you’ll play several successive campaigns on that map. Traces of your defeat might seep into the next colony. ““Individual play sessions should create events or factoids that carry on into the fiction of the campaign,”

[Girlinhat]

This looks entirely like a B12 member found some coding skills and say "to hell with procedure, I know what would be really cool!"  It's as if you took all the bits of "this game would be 100x better if it had..." and they actually did it.

Although, now we just have to see if it'll happen.  It looks legit, and heaven knows Dredmore made them enough money to fund the project.

[Anvilfolk]

I am cautiously optimistic about this one... I love steampunk, and I like colony building games, and well, duh, dwarf fortress. Their PC gamer article says they kinda wanna do DF for everybody.

I didn't like how they oversimplified roguelikes in Dungeons of Dredmore, but that's clearly my problem since the game gets tons of love. Hopefully this one is going to be moar interesting for me too!

[lemon10]

I am cautiously optimistic about this one... I love steampunk, and I like colony building games, and well, duh, dwarf fortress. Their PC gamer article says they kinda wanna do DF for everybody.

I didn't like how they oversimplified roguelikes in Dungeons of Dredmore, but that's clearly my problem since the game gets tons of love. Hopefully this one is going to be moar interesting for me too!

How simplified DoD bothered me a bit too (as someone who likes rougelikes and a masochist (since how else could you actually play rougelikes), but this sounds totally awesome, I hope they pull it off well.

[Girlinhat]

It sounds as if this new game can't be simplified.  Dredmore could, but this is almost assuredly a complex and in-depth game.  It would be extremely difficult to include all those features and still make it point and click gameplay.

[Zangi]

I am... interested.

[Frumple]

Tentative squee. I'm not much of a city builder person, really, but the rest of it, well...

Steamband was one of the few *band variants I could stand. Steampunk seems to be able to make most things more interesting. Adding some cthulhunoid wigglymolestation into it just seals things.

They've got the hook, now to wait until they're done and out with at least a demo or something to see if they can reel something in.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Posting to watch.
Because moar steampunk.