Monthly Archives: August 2012

Clockwork Empire: a Steampunk SimCity?

Gaslamp Games has officially announced their forthcoming title, Clockwork Empire, which sounds like a Steampunk take on SimCity, that classic simulation of urban development. You build colonies, grow their industries and relationships, and deal with lurking dark forces described Lovecraftily as “unseen eye-clusters and malevolent entities trying to breach the walls of reality into this world.”

From the descriptions at least, they wisely seem to be sidestepping the colonialism/imperialism criticisms by simply not having any indigenous people or cultures. This makes the game version of colonization a matter of settlement, rather than one of assimilation, domination, or destruction. If this is not the case, and again, I’ve seen nothing beyond the press release, and they are planning on including indigenous people, they may have a fairly treacherous road ahead of them, given the exist critiques of Steampunk as empire-worship.

The idea of turning the Steampunk sensibilities to a city simulation is certainly exciting and I’m looking forward to playing this when it comes out. It should be available for Windows, OSX, and Linux, although one commenter is already asking for an Android port (and I wouldn’t be averse to an iOs version myself). No release date has been given yet.

Here are the features they list in their press release:

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ABC’s New Steampunk Show: Finn & Sawyer

ABC is working in a new show Finn & Sawyer about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as private investigators “in a bustling and steampunk New Orleans,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The ABC show is being developed by Jason Richman and David Zabel, who have worked together on Detroit 1-8-7 for the last two years. No word yet on casting or on when it might make it might make it to air.

This twist on Mark Twain’s well known characters might sound like a crazy idea, but I suspect Mr. Twain would have approved. Let’s take a look at his Steampunk credentials:

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Harry Harrison, 1925 – 2012

Science fiction author Harry Harrison has passed away. No details have been released, but they are rarely important.

A lot of you may not know Harry Harrison’s work, which is unfortunate. While he did have a couple of novels in the last decade, most of his work is older than that, with his career spanning over fifty years. He is best remembered by science fiction fans for his Stainless Steel Rat series, a collection of novels and stories chronicling the far future adventures of “Slippery Jim” DiGriz, a criminal turned government agent. They are great fun and I recommend them. In popular culture, his most notorious contribution is a little book called Make Room, Make Room that many will know better for the film it inspired: Soylent Green.

All good, but not why I mention his passing here.

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