steampunk – Pinkie's Paradise

Steampunk? Steamball? Steamboy!

Welcome back to Paradise my dear Island guests, I am dropping the steampunk greetings because I ran out! So instead I will go with: “Good day dear guest, welcome to another beautiful day in Paradise, today we serve you this special blend of Anime-Spritz and the Movie-to. Two parts Steampunk with a solid dash of Katsuhiro Otomo one part Star Wars and expectedly garnished with a bit of Akira. This review will take you through my experience with Steamboy!

Akira but with Steam

Steamboy came out in 2004 and is directed by the man the legend Katsuhiro Otome himself. He is known as the man who revolutionised anime with his iconic flick.. Akira! This movie cost 20.2 million dollars and is one of the most expensive animated movies of all time. Certainly at that time. A Blueray these days costs you about €19,90 which I assume will be the dollar price as well as you guys tend to get that stuff cheaper than us. My version at least offered me the chance to choose between sub and dub and this had me pondering for a bit. I am a sub girl.. very much but the dub cast consists of Alfred Molina, Patrick Stewart and Anna Panquin among others and it sounds absolutely phenomenal. However the matching lip flaps stuff isn’t done as well. As a sub-girl I watched the movie subbed. For two reasons. Anna who plays Ray, our main character fakes a british accent, and while she does it pretty good it is a fairly thick accent.. making it slightly harder for me as a non native english speaker to understand being the most important. The second the main characters being the Steam family. In Japanese their name is not translated.. so Steam and steam .. which both appear in this movie a lot.. are more separable. Watching the dub however I think is completely justified!

The movie tells the story of James “Ray” Steam. Son of the great Dr Edward “Eddie” Steam and grandson of the legendary Lloyd Steam. Unbeknownst to Ray his father and grandfather make an invention that can propel the world into the next age of science. The mysterious Steamball. However after a workplace accident Eddie and Lloyed now follow very different beliefs. One seemingly took the side of the Americans and the O’Hara foundation.. led by the Child-Ojousama Scarlett O’Hara St Jones and the weasley CEO Simon. The other takes the side of Robert Stepehnson, a british nationalist and fellow inventor. When Lloyd mails Ray one of the three Steamballs, he quickly finds himself marooned between both sides and has to fight his way out of many dangerous situations so that the true philosophy of science can survive. In doing so however war between America and Britain almost seems unavoidable as Ray quickly finds out that power corrupts. It’s a fairly interesting story that does have its flaws. With the runtime of slightly over two hours this movie outstayed its welcome just a bit. For me one of those moments happened at the 45 minute mark and the second near the end. I never would have turned it off but there were points where I was like… hmmm we are treading water a bit.

America vs Great Britain

The set piece for this movie is great. An alternative take on Britain in 1866. The concept of steam having reached its limits and people trying to break it is intriguing. The quasi science behind is that people found a liquid water-like element or material that can both solidify and turn to steam within a small margin or something..with a denser base one can cram a lot more steam in small containers and make it more productive. The money hungry Americans want it to make MONEY and lots of it while the proud british want to use it for Queen and Country and to subject those who would oppose them. One of the scientists believes that we should explore all facets of science.. even the ones that can be used for nefarious gains, it is up to humans to handle them responsibly and the other beliefs mankind can not be trusted with power like this. Science is meant to serve man not rule over them. Ray works as a neutral perspective; he just loves gadgets and tech and thinks a tank is really cool when he sees one. He does however think a tractor is pretty dangerous because one nearly destroyed his house. It’s where one of this movie’s greatest strengths yet also it’s weaknesses lie. It doesn’t really choose a side… until very very late in the movie. It does keep the plot exciting and shows us some amazing steampunk tech, pretty cool utilities and wonderful locales.. yet we also see a main character that doesn’t know very well what he is fighting for or who he is running from.

I do not mind this neutral approach but they back out of it hard, at one point one side is revealed to be pretty evil.. and then near the end they are not..or they regret it and flip.. I am not sure how to explain that. A lot of characters have ulterior motives, lie about their beliefs and or change them as the movie goes along and a two hour movie is kind of too short to tell that. It results in a lot of idealistic speeching to get the point across the movie is trying to make but that sometimes doesn’t make sense.. like speaking about your ideals against what is essentially your boss. Or telling a kid waaaay more than you would tell a kid. As a result some of the speeches feel a bit forced. So Ray talks to person A, maybe he can’t be trusted, Person B explains his side, Person C tells Ray to be careful and why science should be treated with more care.. but the person is confused.. so maybe it’s person D who has the right vision..who of course also speeches. In the end they are all kind of assholes..but also not?! It’s a tad much.

When action is happening however this movie is great! The Steampunk inventions work in a really mechanical and realistic way and a slew of interesting gadgets is pulled in. Very early Ray for example has to flee from some bad guys on his steam cycle. It as an invention that has not fully worked yet so before he can fire it up properly he has some issues and tumbles around in the wheel (it is basically one large steam propelled wheel ) .. in trying to flee he tries to lose them by quickly hiding behind a Steam train that is coming their way..but the way rails are designed keeps the cycle locked on track. (He had a ramp to get in before) every scene has tiers as it were. It is not just throwing punches… it is feeling out what the problem is, finding a solution and making it happen. All the fights and action scenes are conquered by clever thinking like how a scientist would. Yes there is a powerful mcguffin but it doesnt give power as one would in Shonen.. people almost never overpowered…except for a war going on in the background.. but the action fits the tone of this movie so much. Then there are the more comedic scenes and discovery scenes that pack so much charm.. it only has too many speeches.

Well put Together

What stood out to me most is how absolutely stunning this movie is! It looks gorgeous! This is a 2004 movie so it’s 16 years old but it looks so clean! Yes it is really brown and grey like all steampunk movies and most period pieces, yet the movie knows when it is enough and treats you to a beautiful coloured scene as well. The details look amazing and this might be the only movie where I do not mind that they used 3d graphics in a 2d movie. It blands in so well and gives everything “mass” Wind effects, steam effects they all look SOOOO great in this movie. I am not a big visual type of person but this , this wowed me! It looks 80’s in design , quite close to Akira but with all the commodities of modern animation. I would not describe it as realistic.. but just by looking at it you can add adjectives to every item. The heavy lever, the creaky crank. Just by looking at some parts you know how much force you would have to use to pull it down or make it move. Pipes twist shapes from having too much pressure little glass cracks from shockwaves nearby. Ray’s aviator goggles shatter after his first crash landing.. there are so many small details

The characters are also great. Scarlett O’Hara St Johnson, who is indeed based on the character from Gone with the Wind for example seems like your typical Oujousama , she feels too good for everything.. she is super shallow but rather than having her completely overcome this it is because of said shallowness she discovers some of her beliefs or some stuff her company does doesn’t work for her. Per example.. she talks to a person she has warm sentiments for seeming worried.. however once she founds out it will give her less money .. she thinks of him as a bad element.. influencing something else she likes.. She really wants to keep that..so her mind finds a way to explain how she can have her way. Later on however she sees one of her machines is causing destruction.. the CEO spins it to her as a marketing tool.. so people can see what they will buy! She is against this however because she doesn’t want the “pretty things” to be broken. We see growth, as in the person learns what they want and do not want and what is more important for them.. but they do not morph into a great hero who learned their lesson.

Ray and both Lloyd and Eddie get plenty of similar obstacles in their way. Ray wants to do right.. but he is very idealistic.. he isn’t in this to do right by some or to do right by the good side.. he wants to do right for all. He also believes man is good.. and those traits get him in trouble.. but he doesn’t give up on that. He stays who he is and sticks with his choices, even if that choice is not making a choice. Eddie and Lloyd also make decisions based on this and even Simon who is but a minor character can’t help but showcase his dominant character trait .. being Greed even when it endangers his life. Yes he is weasley, yes he is your typical “snake man” archetype.. he doesn’t do the whole chickening out thing , not really at least, however he is not stupid enough to die for his greed either. Characters stay themselves rather than being a stereotypical movie role. That can lead to a few eyeroll moments, as “in other movies, the hero would have learned by now” .. but that is just the point.. these situations happen because it just so happens to be these characters that were put in this situation and I love that so much!

Soaring to the Skies

The movie does fall in the pitfall of having too many finales, the final encounter has so many tiers that it stops being interesting in the final step or so. It’s still amusing but I reached a point where I would be fine with any outcome as long as it would end. It’s not quite “you haven’t even seen my final form” levels.. but there are definitely too many elements in the end. Reason is once again those shifting alliances and believes. What starts as Small guy versus big corporate evildoers ends up as England versus America and that ends up in.. about 8 subgroups or so each doing their own things. It makes sense.. but it all is a bit convoluted and it means some plottreats do not go anywhere. There is a big thing about scuba divers in steampunk suits but one falls off the stairs because he trips and that ends the entire thing with the Scuba divers.. We see a character be built up as super important in the conflict and at one point he just stands there and watches.. while he technically was still doing things… and of course for some reason each side has the perfect counter for the other teams surprises packed and loaded on their ships. Air Travel is still unheard of yet when America shows something in those veins. and Brittain goes.. what the F is that thing.. they also go like “Hey now we can test out that weapon we made in case people made such a thing we were just so utterly surprised by” It dulls the background conflict significantly.

The action with Ray and Scarlett amidst that war is finger licking good! The story is descent with flaws, the action only has that one bigger setback. Critics rate this movie with about a 6,6 out of 10 and a 6,9 on IMDB. However I do feel those scores are way too low. On Metacritic this movie scores an 8.7 out of 10 from the audience and that I find is a much fairer score. I would put it slightly lower due to it’s chunky runtime and excessive speeches, which I could forgive if the finale was a BIT more on point but for a movie about the glory of science, for a movie about steampunk I could not wish for much more than what I have got. Even after finding this movie too long I kind of want to rewatch it dubbed sometime.. not right now , not even this year anymore but I really want to watch the dub as well at some point and that has to be a seal of approval right there. A sub-girl who liked this movie so much that she would like to see if the dub would make her appreciate it even more!

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Steampunk D&D The Videogame? Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Rusted Geared Greetings my lovely island guests! Some of you might now I am very into D&D and often reference it! It is my favourite game to play by far as I do have enough imagination to imagine the worlds we visit and see them unfold in better graphics than any engine based game could! I petted a dragon, I yeeted a huge cyberpunk golem into a black hole and I can distinctly visualise those worlds. Today I review the game that brought me closest to this experience I have been with a video game. That game is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura!

It’s a D&D Game

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a game by Troika Games, you might have heard of them from their game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. One of my favourite RPG’s and BY FAR ..FAR …FAAAAR my favourite vampire game! I still simp for Jeanette! I think that is how I used that word right?! Troika games is pretty well known for deeply complex games built on actual roleplay games mechanics. If Arcanum is an actual roleplaying system I do not know. Yet this game feels the most open world (ish) D&D like that I have ever played. Mimicking the playstyle of a Pen and Paper RPG the most of everything. This starts when you realise that the manual for this game is completely available online from the start up. There is no tutorial, no hints on how to build your character, limitless possibilities with minimal and vague descriptions. Descriptions like “Int” You can raise this stat to raise Intelligence, Some crafts scale from this stat and some magic. Luckily there is the manual…which uses pretty pictures.. a very tiny font.. and has 185 pages. And that is a single language! (European Manuals often were multi-lingual hence the clarification to those who might not have grown up with that). I was arrogant enough that I believed I could do this without the Manual so I made Elle.. my OC in my Isekai series and other media as well.

In D&D classes there exists this game, much like Vampire the Masquerade and Aberrant as roleplaying systems offer you the ability to do anything. Which is amazing! Yet somewhat overwhelming. Choosing between genders races and Portraits gives you about 50 ish choices of what character you want to play as.. of which about 5 have different stats. Based on your race. Then you pick from well over 30 backgrounds that all hugely affect the game. I made Elle an Half-Elf with the background Nitzsche’s Poster Child. Which doubles her critical fail chances but gives her a permanent 10% experience boost! I wanted to give her ice magic.. but that was lacking so instead she got the first offensive spell I could find.. Harm. In regular D&D once you have selected your character and race you distribute your skill points and choose from between 6 stats to level up. The rest is altered by those base stats.. and your class which levels up.. semi separately from the character. In this game however there are no classes! Everything! … EVERYTHING! Is leveled by the same points. So upon start and level up..instead of choosing out of 6 stats..you get to choose out a few more! You can choose out of 50 things to put your points in.

It did not take me long to realise I had not built Elle properly to survive at the start, I kept dying before even exiting the starter area and because I am reviewing here I played the game on easy! Still I kept getting washed as Elle kept falling over! While very much in her character I wondered what was causing it. Was it the Nitzsche thing? No! It was the fact that if you are out of Mana you fall to the floor! As Elle had no Melee investments she could not put up reliable DPS without crashing. Or so I though! Because experience is not based on how much you kill in this game! Experience is based on how much you hit! How many actions you take and all that stuff. I of course still could not hit enough to get away with so much little “mana” which is called fatigue in this game so I had to redo it. So Elle’s much more competent Twin Emma was born. She was Elle’s counterpart.. instead of clumsy and socially awkward she was physically apt with a hint of magic and she had an extreme personality which makes people react to her very hostile or very friendly! I trained her to be skilled with a sword and gave her some magic for a ranged option. As she would grow during our adventure she would develop in a semi rogue, with trickster spells. A bit of a chaotic neutral type player tethering more to the evil side. For those who ask.. yes this game also features alignments.

It’s a D&D Video Game

Emma discovers a lot of things while playing. I was walking to towns but apparently you need to quick travel, or you will travel for hours through empty lands. During travel however you can not rest easy as encounters may pop up! This can be disastrous or a fun challenge depending on what your level is, what your settings are and what kind of gear you are rocking. The game features the ability to play it real time, in which case it plays very similar to Diablo..but shittier. Or you can play it fully turn based in which it kind of plays like Divinity Original Sin 2….but shittier. More on those negatives later! I play the game in Turn based so it felt more like a tabletop and that was the less shitty of the three options but again you will have to check the next section for that. First let’s tell you about the size of the game! Which is sizable… even with many mock locations you can still explore the map with fast travel to discover points of interests. For example, I encountered many mysterious shrines I had come to investigate! Then there are a few important towns connected by railway stations and tech, but also travable in the classic way.

This is what makes this game so interesting. The setting is quite unique, and when I say that I mean it is quite Identical to Fable 3. The Industrial Age in a fantasy setting. However this game leans WAY heavier into it and besides a good and evil alignment your character can either perform well in Steamworks OR Magick Obscura… You choose a side if it were. Though nothing works as well as just hitting things hard with a big metal object which for me .. kind of was a fun change of pace. Don’t get me wrong.. Sword is not the only playstyle.. but it is by far the easiest and it still isn’t easy. Let’s say Sword is Normal Level difficulty.. maybe even Intermediate. Magic is Hard and if you go Tech..well that is by far the hardest to a point that for me personally it is unplayable. It is doable but there is a lot of searching for parts, tinkering , leveling crafting levels to keep things up, leveling traps to use traps, leveling the stat to use it and of course raising your defence so you live long enough. It by far is the biggest package of skills you need to manage, but I am sure that will be someone’s dream playstyle.. save it for a second run though.

A second run is quite playable and manageable because there is lots to see and lot of choices to make! So high points in replayability. In this story you play the only survivor of the Zephyr a blimp that got taken down by Ogre Aviators.. who did not know how to fly a plane so they just tried stuff and took themselves down by flying into the blimp and just exploding against it.. it worked though and only a tiny halfling or gnomish man survived long enough to hand you a ring with some intials on it as your only clue! This person is important to the faith of the world the gnome says. Then a priest shows up and tells you , you are an incarnation of a god.. but since he is just a rookie priest he doesn’t know anything more than the legend. He teams up with you and so an epic journey filled with lots of shady figures and people out for that ring and/or your life begins. While I haven’t been able to complete the game yet, I made a large enough dent in the story that I have a fairly good impression of the world building and it is quite amazing. There are very many ways to move through the story.. so I won’t tell you mine as it might ruin the fun.. because this is not a game you’ll want to play for the gameplay.

It’s a Video Game

The game is a harsh one, there is no backing out of conversations, there is no regret , there is no autosave! If you make a choice it is locked in unless you remember to save before it. You don’t always know when these moments come up so save plenty! For example, fairly early in the game, my character sides with a thief and I destroyed supplies for another … which gave me access to thieves guild.. but the town disliked me! I never got very good sale prices after.. luckily I helped them stop a bank robbery earlier so I was in a more or less neutral position. I befriended a big Ogre that helped me a lot in combat..however I got sent back almost an hour of dungeon crawling when he reached 0 hp. As far as I am aware.. if a character reaches 0 hp it’s dead forever. So I learned to save plenty. I sided with a group of necromancers , I figured since my character used necromancy herself she would not be against it. This does have an effect on other events later on. That kind of world building is pretty standard.. but it is implemented very well here.. but where this game really shines is the side quest.

In the first large city you encounter I got a quest to track down a painting that was stolen.. it plays out a bit like a detective story of sorts, it looks like the husband may be involved but he is hard to find. Unrelated I stumbled upon another side quest to deliver a letter from a shady guy. He kept saying to me I should not open it! Yet Emma is curious and she has a big strong ogre to protect her so she opened it anyway! It directions to a house with a brief but ill foreboding bit of text. Upon delivering the letter they find out I broke the seal and they try to kill me! They kill that monk guy that tagged along so I restart and do the fight better.. These guys were gonna pull a heist or something it seems. However it turns out that in that house you now can rob yourself.. is actually THE painting you’ve been looking for. Quests OVERLAP and I don’t think I have ever seen that. Of course if you decide to deliver the letter like normal you do not go to the house and I am not sure if the painting then would change locations to house you delivered the letter to or if they leave it.. but this world changes so much from you interacting with it.. and what you do in one side quest or what order you do them in can change how events unfold and for a 2001 game that is hella impressive. Even today we don’t see that kind of thing a lot.

Unfortunately mechanically the game is super wonkey! Combat feels super finicky and if you play it in real time mode it feels super floaty and often derails in click spamming, if you have any skills you want to use you are almost forced to play it in turn based mode. Real time does work.. but weird things happen, there is a quick select for example to use skills like in an MMO but they are not telling you which key is what. So I thought for the longest time I had to click them , still real time combat feels muddy and lacks the tactics you can use in turn based. That itself is hindered by hitboxes and context sensitive spells but without proper feedback! For example casting harm on a friendly unit can be done when it stands in front of an enemy. It will say you target your ally but target the enemy instead it feels super unnatural. It looks murky and boring as well in most places! The steampunk elements look super creative , but especially the wilderness is extremely repetitive. It has beautiful music but it loops too often and all in all.. it is kind of a bad video game. Because almost all elements are wonky! It is too hard, it looks bad, (for 2001 standards and did not age well either) it sounds generic and combat and movement feels super floaty and I had a lot of frame drops! IN a 19 year old game! So while it is an interesting video game .. it is also a bad video game.

What is it?!

In the end that is the fatal flaw of this game. It’s not good enough to be a strong video game and it is too limited to be considered a proper D&D adventure. What we get is something that is kind of smack in the middle of it! It wanted to be more a pen and paper game and compromised too little to be a video game. It doesn’t work. Combat is done poorly and unbalanced. A melee hit does less damage.. but costs less stamina and acts faster (mostly) however since hits count towards XP and not kills.. magic deals TOO much damage. You get less xp and more damage because of your build.. it is a system where you can do everything and you can beat it with everything.. but it is also a system that REALLY REALLY REALLY favours Melee and violent characters. Gameplay and idea don’t overlap.. as if they are from two different worlds.

So this will not appeal to those wanting a great RPG and not to those who want the liberty to play tabletop! That being said however I loved this game .. because it is pretty much for people like me! I’ll admit it is too hard and tedious for me.. so I can only stomach it in small sessions , like an hour a day! But I really want to play that hour a day to see Emma get stronger. She isn’t going to be the character I really REALLY want her to be.. but a more functional build of what I want her to be and that is ..mostly fine. There is such an interesting world to explore that I will take broken mechanics for granted. It is no Final Fantasy VI but it is the closest I can come to experience being a player in a tabletop game for now! It’s harsh, punishing and I really stress out while playing it.. but those nerves also are that of a D&D player on low HP. Simply for the world alone this is such an unique game, and it is quite loved among recent players who like games like this.. It really has this niche audience and I belong to it for the most part! I am still annoyed by it’s flaws or my own limitations to play it more freely so for me it’s fine.. for anyone who thrives for difficulty and freedom.. this is an absolute and rare gem.

_{^{<Disclaimer>
The Screenshots I used are not of my own Journey, I was unable to produce my own screenshots properly due to some technicalities, imagine these.. screenshots but with an leather armored girl with swords and the disarm spell for my journey!
<End of Disclaimer>}}

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Kawaii Mini Blimp takes down Mean Trains 20x it’s size! Steel Empire Review

16-Geared Greetings for a 16-bit Game! My dear Island guests for SteamPunk month we are playing a few interesting Steampunk games. I am still working my way through Dishonored, as I am not very good at sneaking games! I lack the patience and can’t exactly tell how not to be spotted. I am MUCH better at Retro games and I fairly quickly adapt to old timey side scrolling shooters. So when I found a Steampunk one I was pretty happy! After I played this game I still was pretty happy! Though I may have punched my table in anger as well.

One Blimp to Rule them all!

Steel Empire came out early 1992 for Sega Genesis and has since seen several re-releases such as for Gameboy Advanced, Nintendo 3DS and even Steam. Created by Hot.B which at the time allegedly was a one man studio, and published by Flying Edge in the west, this game is a quite overlooked gem that still has a pretty loyal fanbase. Steel Empire was published in Europe under the name Empire of Steel which from what I have seen has also a few minor colour variations when it comes to enemies. Though that might be my imagination! This review is based on my own playthrough of Empire of Steel as well as a Let’s play of the American version of the game. I did this to get some insight in how to play this game, as I wanted to see as much content of the game as possible without having to study patterns for days on end.

In this game you play a talented but nameless pilot of the Silverhead Empire in the age of 18XX which might tell a story about an alternate course of events… OR is set more than 1800 years in the future where all resources have depleted. Sources are contradicting each other on that. The world is fully dependent on the power of steam.. except for your Silverhead Empire which even has the power of coldfusion. However you live an isolated life (Wakanda Forever) in the antarctic. The rest of the world is dominated by the evil Sauron (yes.. that’s his official name) who has vast armies as he marches on the Silverhead army to obtain their ultimate weapon, the Imamio Thunder.. also known as “The Lightning Bomb”. If Sauron gets his hand on this weapon he will surely dominate the world.. so you can board a tiny plane or a tiny blimp to stop him! But it will take you seven stages to do so. Now I must admit Sauron is the Japanese name of the guy.. because it kind of brought associations with them.. but let’s be honest.. I rather say I took lord Sauron down with a Blimp.. wouldn’t you?! Plus calling him Styron in Europe and the USA is like having two Richards in the group.. so you call one of them Dick.. It’s still short for Richard.

Red Hot Action

This game, for the most part, plays like a horizontal space shooter like Gradius, Pariodius and of course Chou Aniki (Something Something) plus like one third of the games on Action 52. It does follow some classical genre tropes like harsh difficulty, near bullet hell gameplay and upgrading your weapons and obtaining limited screen clearing attacks. If you played Gradius or R-Type you know what to expect here! Tiny ships about your size that blow up in a single hit on your way to a boss.. and then a boss that is like 1000x times your size and shoots from every of its many openings. With spaceships this always kind of made sense to me.. you know.. there are always several classes of ships .. gradius is Just a story about an X-wing taking down dreadnoughts. With the Steel Empire however.. everything is steampunk flavoured so we get a Blimp that is ..”regular sprite sized” fighting a train.. that doesn’t even fit in the screen. Not even half! So this is a train that is roughly three times high as a blimp.. and 40 x as long.. if not more! That is one big train! But I kind of imagine it is just one really tiny blimp! Which is just a guy sitting in it.. and that’s all the space he has! Held afloat by some hydrogen just!. I always chuckle imagining that.

Where this game differs a bit from its peers is that you can shoot to the front and back. While Silver Surfer on NES also has this function for example this game uses the Sega’s three button system to make it feel a lot more natural and a lot more effective. We have one button to shoot forward, one to shoot backwards and one to release a screen clearing Lighting Bomb should we have them. The arrows control which direction you go.. and that is all she wrote gameplay wise.. .or is it?! Steel Empire, like most other games, relies on killing enemies to drop weapon upgrades. However in this game it’s not just weapon upgrades. It’s an experience! By gathering 3 experience tokens your ship levels up, which might make weapons more powerful, it might make it a bit faster or it might give it more health. What is even cooler.. dying does not affect our weapon level (as long as you don’t play it on the GBA and for the love of all that is sacred .. do NOT play this on GBA). So as long as you have lives left.. you may be better equipped to fight the boss next time.. because you can level up. Each of the seven stages is divided in two sections. At the end of section A you always fight a midboss and at the end of section B you fight the final boss of that stage.

Empire of Steel as I should call it has a fairly strong narrative. EAch is delivered through a flickering cutscene that looks as if you are watching one of those old war time movies. Maybe even before.. The missions you get are quite diverse and fun, with some stages more dependent on your fighting skills while others rely more on your flying skills. As a rule use the blimp for the odd numbered stages which are more combat focussed and the plane for the even numbered stages. This isn’t a hardset rule and you can play this game as you like.. but it seems to work out the best. For example Stage 1 is a straight up clone of regular R-Type gameplay.. where you face a train at the end, while stage 2 is flying through a collapsing cave at high speeds. Stage 3 has you assault an enemy base.. while in Stage 4 you take on a flying fortress.. that means you have to maneuver in a lot of tight corners. Stage 7 feels more like a double Boss Rush in space.. that’s right! In this game you do go into space.. and you can be a BLIMP in space! Just for that alone this game is worth playing! The action is fun and the patterns are challenging as so cheers to Hot.B

Red Hot Air

Unfortunately this game also falls in a LOT of pitfalls of the genre, which.. if you like this type of games may or may not be a problem to you. It happens in almost every single game in the genre.. so I can’t really blame it for doing the same.. but some things are quite annoying. The most obvious would be the bosses. While you face seven stages you expect to fight seven bosses.. and seven minibosses.. but in reality you face either more or less depending on how you look at this. In stage one you fight a train as a final boss, and on stage 5 your fight another train.. sprite swapped.. with only slightly different attack patterns.. when I say slightly different attack patterns I mean it shouts either bigger pellets or faster .. or both.. In stage three and six or you fight the same boss as well.. though one time the ship is green the other time it’s red! To make it more annoying.. the second time you face it.. you don’t have to kill it once but you have to kill it twice.. and as such the game really feels padded out for gameplay time in places.. which isn’t needed because this game is kind of too long as it is. I would have preferred five stages with more diverse bosses. The minibosses also get repeated so in the end we only effectively fight 6 ish enemies in a grant total of 14 fights.

However like I said that is super common, what is less common is the way boss fights work, which makes them both unique .. but also a bit weak at times. Though this mostly applies to sub bosses. They work by having several hitboxes and you need to destroy them all. Which is fine.. it really makes utilizing the shooting back and forth function more viable and fun. The issue however is that these bosses most of the time don’t fit the screen and you are moved from front to back at regular intervals. Your aircraft can not move the edge of the screen that happens based on time… so say you are fighting a battlecruiser and have destroyed everything in the front.. you can only start moving to the back when the screen wants you too.. and if you don’t go fast enough from there it will send you back to the front again where you might not have anything left to destroy.. it basically just lowers your guard and allows the game to sneak in a few cheap hits by killing your attention. One enemy is super frustrating because he can only be hit by your secondary weapon as you can never shoot straight down or up..so some fights can get a bit tedious.

This doesn’t really ruin the space shooty fun.. but does have a chance to ruin your fun is the continue system. You get relatively few continues and will never EVER be able to make it to the end in a single playthrough. Using all your continues gives you a game over and sends you back to the beginning. Classic arcade rules and another way to pad out time. There is however a level select code.. which unfortunately is useless. If you need to start at stage 5, 6 or 7 again using level select codes brings your weapon power back to level 1 .. with that amount of health and fire power there is no way to beat the game.. so the cheat code is pretty useless.. unless you also cheat in weapon upgrades.. and that requires a second genesis controller..which you won’t always have laying about playing single player games. So cheating to skip levels.. doesn’t do anything. This is kind of annoying considering that some strategies you might not discover on your first playthrough because the game can change its own rules. For example in the final battle there are asteroids on the battlefield which just exist to hinder you.. the boss can shoot right through them.. however in his final phase he gets a huge powered solar sail and fire’s screen filling fire eye at you.. wait how ISN”T this sauron? The only way to stay safe is to hide behind the asteroids.. which goes against all previous rules so you will never guess it first try and will gameover here.

Solid as Steel

Like I said most of these things are gripes that come with the entire genre so I don’t think it is completely fair for me to judge the game on those.. it’s just elements of why I like vertical space shooters a bit more.. They tend to be a tad more straightforward. Stage 6 of this game however is super frustrating. You decent underground dodging sky forts down in a small way. you have to blow up bridges fast enough or know how a fort looks .. to dodge it properly.. thuus you need to have played it before.. When I game overed in this stage I nearly quit out of anger.. and I punched my table.. yet after taking a few breaths I realised I was having fun and I wanted to try again. That is where this game really shines. It is not fair, it is not easy and it is designed to make you at least fail one.. perhaps even twice. Yet that is how these things work.. it’s like a crane game where you push that Plushies closer and closer to the edge.. you can’t stop investing in it.

So now that I decided not to weigh it’s genre errors against it .. is there anything left to critique ? Yes there is! The music is incredibly inconsistent! Some tracks are absolute zingers and remind me of the classic Sega tracks while others are really bad and lack that Sega.. Grayish sound. With Gray sound I mean that metally.. industrial sound that Sega has compared to Nintendo.. if Nintendo makes a track for say .. F-Zero it would sound Blue.. Red and Potentially Gold.. If Sega would do it it would be Brown/Copper, Silver/Grey and Navy. That’s how it is supposed to be.. but here.. we get way to tranquil music.. almost pastel colour like at times which do not fit this game at all. There are a few very good tracks in the game that sound Sega.. but in a Steampunk game it should have been more.

Weirdly one of the biggest issues the game has.. to me kind of became a strength. This game has a lot of lag/slowdown when a lot of stuff is being shot at you. But because of the difficulty I welcomed it.. it allowed me to skillfully dodge these shots as the controller reacts perfectly in unison with the lag.. as it almost was a form of Bullet time. It wasn’t but trough this lag I could learn so many patterns. There is a lot of stuff happening on screen.. but in a way we get at least a bit of time to analyse what is happening here!. The gameplay is simple enough and the sea of bullets is dense enough to look impressive but never as big to cause dispair.. due to the slowdown I kind of ended up feeling like a major badass perfectly steering trough.. even when the game did not lag as much those earlier moments training with it made me just so much better. This is finally a horizontal shooter I can beat, and it is one with a unique setting and nice mission structure too.

The game has a lot of issues.. but it is also a game that keeps being fun despite of its issues and that is what makes a good game, at least in the retro department. Is it a classic? No.. but if you want a Steampunk game for an evening you can do a lot worse than this! It’s charming to be a Zeppelin that takes down huge trains! It has a unique and fun presentation, and the blimp is just cute! Especially in the later stages when everything is bigger than you.. but you have leveled up so much that you can decimate the screen easily. It’s super weird yet it’s also super iconic and this retro game walks a good line between unique enough and classic enough to be fun in this day and age! A very solid game..maybe not the way Scott calls his games solid.. but 7 out of 10 solid!

An Entertaining Invention With Too Many Parts: The Mortal Engines

Tophat with goggles of the mornin to ya lads and ladies. Steampunk inventions to me are defined by having superfluous designs. I do think they could work but it also feels like you could make it a lot more effective and less prone to breakage if you lose a few parts here and there. The first movie I decided to watch for this series completely fits in that theme. This movie is SO steampunk that in it’s design it even is steampunk in it’s very direction and concept. A great movie to start off with! So with this post I will review the Mortal Engine.

The Framework of Movie

The Mortal Engines is a Steampunk movie that came out in 2018 with.. a bit of a buzz.. You know, it’s not one of those movies you really put in your day planner but you remember the trailer for it thinking.. that might be interesting. At least that was how it appeared to me. It’s a Universal Pictures movie.. that was produced by Wingnut films along with a few other studios. It stars Robert Sheehan as the male lead. A guy you might know from his role in the tv series Misfits.. or of the campy but strangely similar title.. the Mortal Instruments. He plays Tom Natsworthy.. a historian who once had the ambition to be an aviator. The female lead is played by Hera Hilmar, who played in Da Vinci’s demons and A LOT of movies where I don’t know how to make the special characters on my keyboard. She plays Hester Shaw and to me at least was the most interesting character in this movie. The biggest name tied to this movie is Hugo Weaving who plays the role of Thaddeus Valentine.. and no that is not a spoiler.. that is shown in the first 10 minutes. Plus he is called Thaddeus Valentine.. that’s like a dead giveaway for villainous intent.

The movie is directed by Christian Rivers whom I have never heard off but he directs a lot for Peter Jackson who also is involved for the Screenplay of this movie. It’s based on a book or book series but I haven’t read them so I will be honest I do not know if it follows the entire book series, the first book or is a reimagining. Thus I will be critiquing any problems I have with the story , or things I love about it seperate from the book. I do not care if they had to follow a weak plot line because it is part of the book. I will review this as if it was a completely stand alone product and purely review it as a movie. Artemis Fowl has shown us how movies can be rewritten entirely to fit the silver screen, albeit poorly, so no need to compare it to the book. I will assume the book is better so if you dislike me critiquing points.. I am sure the book offers more context.. but that is not a valid argument here! I am the average movie audience here!

The Many Cylinders of the Plot

The story of this movie is rather complex for a 128 minute movie. Because there are many plot points and they really tie into my opinion of this movie, consider this your spoiler warning. This will be one of those reviews where I dig in deep! Starting in the next section.. so you have until then to make up your mind. The movie mostly follows Tom and Hester and their adventure together. The movie is set somewhere in the early 3000’s or the late 2000’s. Present day is described as being a thousand years ago! Yet since that often can be used hyperbolically.. I will keep it that vague. Tom is a historian working in the great city of London. To survive and get resources the city hunts smaller settlements and thus earns the title of Predator city. Settlements that fall prey to this city.. do not have their citizens killed.. but you are forced to live in London.. and this faith befalls Hesters village.. or so we think. WShe actually snuck onto this city.. to get captured by London. Her goal is to kill Thadeus Valentine.. When Tom foils her assasination attempt to save the man he respects, their destinies become intertwined and a big conspiracy is soon to be revealed.

What follows is an interesting movie, that has tons and tons of cool action scenes. Pursuits on conveyor belts, huge fight scenes, daring escapes from hard to escape AND access places. We also get some very colourful and entertaining characters that really seem like they jumped out of an interesting JRPG. They are very over the top but I mean that in a very endearing way. Tom and Hester really are very much opposites but their journey together is quite charming to watch even if it’s quite cliché. Steampunk wise we are also good, we get lots of cool vehicles, lot’s gadgetty action and just a whole lot of fun! This is an absolute popcorn flick of the highest level where they just cram in so much fun stuff.. it actually becomes a bit less fun.. and a whole lot more messy!

It’s a true Jackson

Peter Jackson does what Peter Jackson does best in this movie and makes this movie a spectacular fantasy spectacle movie that features giant moving cities and insect like vehicles instead of Orcs and Dragons. We do not get Giant Apes.. but we airships and undead. It’s all brought to life in such a believable way. Peter Jackson however also does what Peter Jackson does worst.. and that is turning a fairly self contained story into a somewhat convoluted mess that has WAAAAAY too many things going on and WAAAAY too much world building for a two hour format. Jackson does not trim excess weight.. and there is a lot of it in this movie.

Not only does Hester have to get back to London to kill Thaddeus Valentine for killing her mother, he is also building a mysterious weapon.. so that Tom the historian can come into play offering plenty of exposition. The boy dreams of being an aviator but after his parents died in a tragic accident he gave it up to take on their job to honour them. Those parts all work in pretty great harmony! We got one girl that was raised with a thirst for vengeance traveling with a bookworm trying to be more. However Hester is also being chased by an undead man, Thaddeus Valentine has a daughter who is close friends with Tom and potentially even romantically interested.. while he gets ejected out of the city she starts her own investigation. There is a Terrorist out there known as Anna Fang who actually is a sort of sky pirate.. operating from a floating city.. which works in an alliance with a non Migratory settlement of Buddhist Monks and Mongol like warriors who have built the next Shangrila and have resources aplenty.. trying to survive the tyranny of the predator cities.

That already is a lot of balls being held up in the air.. but then the Undead guy has a subplot of being Hesters , surrogate father who wishes to turn her into an undead machinelike woman herself because after she lost her mom she closed off her heart. There is a guy who is interested in Thaddeus’ daughter.. who seems like he is built up like Tom’s rival for Katherines love.. but then Tom falls for Hester instead and Katherine also gives up on falling in love with Tom and tries to befriend a man named Bevis.. who is a working Joe who hates Katherine for who her father is.. the two seem to hit it off.. but the movie runs out of time so we don’t see that going anywhere. Oh and then of course there is this super secret weapon that Valentine is trying to obtain..but the secret is locked in Hesters path.. but she can’t remember it all because she closed off her heart .. so now her love .. and the undead named Shrike all play part in that as well. Did I tell you there are also slavers and a faction that works with the slavers.. There are ancient rumors of secret passageways and a city overseer who gets sucked in by Thaddeus’ ploy .. evil scientist and there is a deeper connection between Valentine and Hester.. it is so much , and a lot of these plot points don’t go anywhere. Especially with Katherine a lot of stories just fizzle a bit.

Junk Art

To explain this a bit more let me tell you the events off about ⅓ of the movie. Starting after Hester’s failed attempt to kill Valentine. Tom.. wanting to impress Katherine I think.. chases after the assassin Hester.. over a conveyor belt.. while huge chainsaws and buzzsaws chop up the small town both have dodge debries and of course being cut in half. After that Tom catches up with Hester in the dustshoot of the city.. which she jumps off.. telling Tom that Valentine killed her mother. The man shows up himself and once he found out Tom heard this information he pushes him off the city sending patrols to dispose of them. Hester steals Tom’s money so he decides to follower her around realising Thaddeus just tried to murder them. They have to try to board London again to get this resolved.. but Tom not used to the wild thinks he signals a traveling town… unknowingly actually flagging slavers down to his location. They get chased by large parts of a city and Hester gets hurt by a harpoon. Just as they are about to get captured they are saved by an old guy and his centipede like tank vehicle.. but Hester is injured and needs a doctor. It doesn’t take long to find out this old guy actually works for the slavers.. and Tom and Hester have to escape.. however since Hester is injured that is not possible. She tells Tom to leave her behind but he refuses.

Thus the two do not escape and make it to a slave market where they are about to be sold off separately.. when Anna Fang shows up to rescue Hester..Apparently her mother was a Freedom fighter as well and she asked Anna to find Hester. Which took her many many years. Because Anna has a bounty on her head a fight between her and the slavers ensues using martial arts and steampunk guns to cause some serious damage. Just as the slaver town goes into driving mode.. the undead guy shows up and begins blasting and chasing Hester and Tom.. Anna saves Hester with an airship but Tom is to slow now Hester has to decide if she sticks by her own code and saves Tom…this all happens in about 45 minutes or so so is about ⅓ of the movie.. and that ONLY deals with our main characters story.. We also see Thaddeus and Katherine do stuff still and get exposition from other historians. It is one heck of a messy ride.. but I sure did enjoy it. It’s kind of watching kids decorate a christmas tree.

It’s like leftovers pizza where you just put everything you like on the pizza and then eat it. It’s nice and keeps you fed and you do like the taste.. but if you let someone do a blind tasting they have no idea what’s on it. The Shrike storyline … just kinda ends.. it DOES contribute.. in a way.. but I feel the story would have been cleaner without it. It feels like this would have been better as a plot for a sequel.. now that Hester is happy she has to keep an old promise and stop feeling.. but now she doesn’t want to any longer.. Shrike has the combat skill to do work as a movie long villian. There is a cuteness to the story with Hester’s heart being fixed and him recognising this.. but it just could have been done better. Katherine’s plot literally just stops being relevant.. we do not even get to see her react to any of the big reveals. It’s like Red wine that is not decanted properly. Sure you can get drunk and have one hell of a buzz if you finish the bottle.. just if you allowed it to breath more it would have been better.

On A Roll

Yet despite that it is movie messy there is such a charm to this movie. I can only admit that it has this amazing geeky feeling. When the flyer pilots take on London , It feels like Gurren Lagann to me.. when they face Shrike in the Slaver city I got JRPG vibes on account of the plot jumps and the somewhat tacky but satisfying moral choices. There is a bit of Bioshock in there, a bit of fallout, it even has some disney vibes here and there.. there is a bit of Star Wars , if you are any kind of geek this movie will just have a form of magnetism.. I felt so much appeal throughout the entire two hours. I did not care that the movie was a sloppy mess.. I kinda more or less just knew but I did not really care.

The way the movie city is made, the costumes, the colours it all has a childish appeal to it. Not all effects are convincing.. but it still looks bad-ass. This movie feels very videogamey to me and I mean that in the best way possible. It has the same flaws as gaming as well but the action is really nice and REALLy engaging almost as if you take part. The acting is not always convincing but it has that JRPG charm. Hugo Weaving does a nice job playing the villain and Tom is a great character. Hester has a few mistakes for me.. especially when Shrike.. is written out of the movie she more or less feels like she just did the English voice over of a Tales of Game… but somehow I like that. It’s one of those movies that has a charm.. like Batman and Robin .. but better. It’s greatest strength is it’s charisma and I actually love that this is a movie that sits on that merrit. Steampunk to me has a form of charrisma and appeal.. it doesn’t always make sense..but when you look at it you can’t help but smile. If you can fall for a movies appeal instead of it’s merrits you will have a very great time.

Reimagining My Life: The Steampunk Way

Steam Salutations, those who visit these mechanical isles! It is the month of Steampunk on this blog, as per popular vote! We thank everyone for voting! However it has left the manager with an extremely difficult task. She has to write a lifestyle post about Steampunk first! Not having the money for those expensive cosplay props the manager had to rethink what she could do.. and then as if inspired by Eddison and Watts.. an idea popped up! The Manager would reinterpret her life.. had she lived in a Steampunk society. How would my life be if instead of high tech gadgets.. everything was powered by junk, steam and gears.. what kind of person would I be?!

Recalibrating my body

First things first.. how would I look and be in Steampunk society. It’s a rather common event to replace some lesser functional limbs and parts with a mechanical counterpart.. however.. since I have issues with my muscles including my heart that would mean replacing a lot of me.. and I don’t want my biggest enemy to be a big magnet. I do love Tony Stark a lot though so I think I will replace my heart with a mechanical one.. preferably low on the steam! I doubt steam in my chest would be healthy! So I would like to replace my heart with a clock thingy we’d name .. “the Ticker” it would be a Cuckoo clock inspired thing that actually has a heart shaped Cuckoo bird coming out.. when I am in love.. or when I am in heart trouble. I would occasionally need to wind it again and I would forget it every now and again so thank Steam-Powered-Arceus I got a visual reminder. I would love it to have all sorts of little things popping out of my ticker.. .. but we have to be a bit realistic.

I would probably be able to walk less well then I would now.. my medicine is keeping me a bit more agile.. and I feel that in a Steampunk Society they would just cut it off and replace it with a mechanical one.. I however love my shows too much so I would not want a mechanical leg. So I’d rather end up in a Steam powered wheelchair than with a big spider leg! I can probably walk bits and bobs a day .. so I would have a steam powered wheelchair and a steam powered cane to help me move about. Depending on how bad the day is and how cold the weather is and all that stuff. People would constantly ask me to get my legs replaced but I would puff up my cheeks and tab my steam powered cane on the floor to show my fabulous shoes.. and clean them with little puffs of steam! Of course they would be pink!

I’d probably wear some goggles as I need glasses anyway so they would be replaced by goggles.. of course in pink. If I wear a hat it will be a ladies tophat.. also in pink.. one of those pilotty caps would limit me from doing stuff with my hair while I feel the tophat is more an accessory. I like one of those tiny tophats that are just a clip on a hairpin! It would solve two of my problems… one allowing me to style my hair the way I want.. and 2.. it would actually keep my hair in shape! With all that steam around I bet my hair will be really frizzy. Maybe it would be kinda good for my hair.. I must test this out with a bunch of water cookers in my apartment. That can’t go wrong right?!

Gearing up for a Job

Now replacing my heart with the ticker would result in a rather big change in lifestyle.. a big part of why I am sick at home would be gone.. so I would most likely be able to resume my working life. I’d probably do what I have always done and that is working in a store.. however in a SteamPunk Society .. business is quite a bit more cutthroat. So many junk peddlers and fairly bad circumstances.. there sure as heck would not be proper unions.. and the way I am today.. I am probably too “free spirited” to keep a job long. I imagine my bosses being all types of salesmen like Watto from Star Wars so I would struggle to hang on to a job. So instead I would aspire to be a journalist.. of course Freelance.. because nobody would hire such a free spirit. So.. in al likeliness I would be a traveling junker.. working in my own employment. Traveling to find some stuff to sell .. but traveling to interesting places so I could also find a story to sell to whatever newspaper I am close to! Of course the merchant life would be a dangerous one and I would need a partner!

My Partner would be Bulb-A-Saur.. a steam powered robot with a little metal detector in it .. making it’s light-bulb glow if it is close to a treasure. It would also shake and twith a lot and break down a lot.. so I would not make a bunch of money.. it would all be spend into fixing my sweet mechanical pet. It has been with me since my youth.. when mom and dad gave me Bulbie-chan because all the other kids picked on me and I needed a friend. Even though it is super outdated we would still be friends.. there is no age limit and no write off on friends even if they are mechanical. I would always smile when it comes whirring back to life.. telling everyone that friendship is magic. So all in all I would be a bit off more or less the same jobwise. I don’t have a very solid one.. but I have a good hobby and it offers me some sustainability.. plus an extra every now and again. Making friends would be hard.. Steampunk worlds often have a lot of corruption.. and sky pirates. The latter would not be my friends because I work for the newspaper I might reveal their identities to write my way to a Pullitzer.. and Johnny Law.. has to hide stuff from me so I don’t become a steamwhistleblower. Most of my current friends most likely would not be my friend in this scenario because they either are working for shady companies.. or are super law abiding. However some people I know may be worked into a crew.

Assembling my Steampunk Crew

Just like I believe I am destined for big things and stardom in this life, so would i have great ambitions in my other life.. It’s not like real ambition.. because that to disappointment.. However I am someone who will always keep dreaming,, forever moving.. but not sure what direction I will move in! However I do realise that even wandering forward .. and wanting to dream is something I will need a crew for! I mean I can of course dream by myself but I can dream bigger with others… So what kind of people do I need in a Steampunk world? How can I translate that to people I know?! Well first of all I need a person who can sail one of those zeplin airship thingies.. not a sky pirate.. but not a lawmen either.. because the state will come after me for my stories at one point. Probably someone with one of those old time ball shooting guns as well because the knock back on those things makes me unable to use it.. I might be able to whack people with a stick but I have like next to zero offensive capabilities. I have two friends who fired a gun. The Multifaceted Ocelot and Indigo.are both great fits so I will make them a pair! Two guys bought the same airship.. and neither refused to give in.. so now they are sharing the airship waiting for each other to croak..I befriended both of them.. and mediated. I probably asked Indigo for some help to fix Bulb-A-Saur and helped Ocelot with something on his mind.

So I have two guys.. who shoot stuff and fly airships for me.. Indigo can probably be some tinkering while Ocelot could unlock new functions in Bulb-A-Saur.. but one thing we have in common is we all aren’t that good at planning. We are chaotic, and kind of shy and introverts. Socially Awkward and who knows what else.. not a great trait for a journalist of course. Yet I am me.. I won’t let my limitations hold me back and I will just find people to help me get past that. So I need a social girl.. one that works as a “source” for news but one that can also function as a bit of a scout.. and a planner. My friend Fatmima Minusima would make for a good scout friend. We met each other through blogging where she kind of worked as my link to the professional world.. when disaster struck. Yet it figures it would also mean that we would meet in our Steampunk life.. where she is my operator, source planner. She would have one of those eyeglasses thingies that makes her hyper aware. You know with the switchable lenses in all sorts of colours for all sorts of effects. She works in Public Relations for a big game company in real life so the job would fit her. I do feel like I can’t use my nickname for her hear.. as there is a joke in there established by friends of my old life.. so we will just call her Betty.

Finally I would need a pack mule.. you know .. a lot of treasure is super heavy and I can lift about twelve kilogram before getting into some trouble… that is not a lot of weight. I need a strong man.. while Indigo can work like that.. the other role fits him a lot better. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of strong friends. I have one..but he doesn’t mix well with Fati.. plus I think in Steampunk society we would not be friends..well at least not his current day counterpart. He would be one of those government guys that kind of sells out his soul for cash a status.. he would maybe later on be convinced of hte evil of his ways but he needs to do something he regrets first so he can learn.. right now he isn’t there yet so he’s out. My sister would kind of work for the stereotype as well.. she is very buff and strong.. and she is my rock in my ways but she might be a bit too homey. So I actually think I would end up with a guy I used to be friends with.. we met when I was working in a hardware shop.. selling tools so it is a good backstory. He once again is a tinkerer but also one of those pretty boys that can life a lot. He is good fun and a very free spirit.. his girlfriend not so much .. she is rather close minded and status driven.. but hey in this world they would have never met. So we would still be good friends. He liked I was so out of the box and we had some great adventures.. we buff this version up with metal hands and we will end up with kind of a mix between Bender and Metaton..but more human. Let’s name him Marcus!

Thinkering on My Adventures

Now what would I be doing in these times? Well currently the steampunk world would be plagued by a mysterious disease. Yes I am romanticizing that situation a bit but only because a mysterious plague would make great sense in a SteamPunk world.. the plague doctor is one of the most iconic things associated with the entire world. It would not be entirely the same thing as what we are going through but let’s keep the paralel. In the Steampunk world it WOULD be an engineered disease used to exert control.. we will steer heavily into those ridiculous conspiracy theories out there ..because they just fit the world like a glove. Mysterious Plague Doctors would appear .. as well as corrupted governments refusing to give up their power.. and I as a reporter would try to find my scoop! A world run by streams and guns would have no internet after all. While there is no fake news.. governments have a much higher big brother level in this setting.. and so it would all be a much more dark and ominous situation.

To lighten the mood a little we will say that my crew and I do not fully get involved with the disease. It is more of a background the world is going through. SteamPunk me would be waiting for a package delivery from SteamPunk Santa.. let’s say a new part for her heart or a new bulb for Bulb-A-Saur.. but then under the guise of this mysterious disease SteamPunk Santa and his Steam Powered Sled would go missing over London.. a nation that is going into complete isolation at this time.. even more so than any other country! .. Of course the Sled would be an amazing treasure as would Ru-D0lph the Steampipe Reindeer so me and the crew would travel into the terrain of one of the mad man politicians realms to find Santa for a super duper scoop.. or just loot his sled and reindeer for treasure.. whatever comes first.

And that would be my SteamPunk story..If you are like.. Oh my Arceus.. that is Amazing Pinkie.. you should make a movie out of this… well then I need a few million Kofi Donations and I will make it so.. so if you want to be part of that Million then feel free to support my Kofi clicking in the cute pink little picture. Now time to dig deeper into steampunk month!