Clockwork Empires from Gaslamp Games (Dungeons of Dredmore) has, with it’s latest update, moved from an Alpha Build (50) to it’s first Beta Build. This is a critical transition for the team who have been regularly updating the game’s Early Access since it launched there on August 2014. The move indicates that the game’s core mechanics are in place, the team behind it echo this in their latest [dev update] where they say we should think of the remaining development time in months, not years.
For those of you unaware of the game it was originally brought to Steam Early Access as a revolutionary settlement management title which a steam-punk setting and heavy Lovecraft influences.
As with most colony games my, personal, main issues were in managing food supplies – I have a terrible habit when I start anything like this (recently Banished, RimWorld, Gnomoria) of being a bit over-ambitious in my plans and so running out of materials before we have a proper system set up for food. There’s chipper work arounds to this in Clockwork Empires, of course, as your colonists have amble ‘worst-case-scenario’ food available in the strange caviar that litters the land, as well as the fish people that don’t take too kindly to them chowing down on said foodstuff.
The game has come a massive way over the last few years, my earlier experiences were hindered by crash-to-desktops, item glitches, and the roughly implemented progression (at the time you were simply awarded new colonists daily). Recent (before this patch) playthroughs have been much more successful with myself boxing in the town using buildings, and even advancing through to the more demanding buildings, and pulling off an extremely robust food network.
As well as bumping the game up to beta, the patch also fixes a long list of issues, as well as changing up a few things for the best – for instance, should a military officer fall now a soldier who was under their command will stand up and take their position. They’ve also tweaked the workshop system, and refined the events system.
Clockwork Empires is currently available on PC & Mac.
