New Arc Line

[Emphyrio]

And it's not Lovecraft without Lovecraft's writing. Darkest Dungeon is the only game that did better than some tentacles and cultists, because it had the narrator to borrow from Lovecraft's style.

Darkest Dungeon also stayed faithful to Lovecraft's work by being equally shit.



-Humbaba

Not all of his horror stories are winners, but his dream stories are top-tier fantasy.

[Lutte]

Shadow over Innsmouth and Herbert West Reanimator are true classics and the amount of influence they've had over literature can't be overstated.

It's very hard to make a game about the sort of themes explored by Lovecraft, because games ultimately are power fantasies - a fail state, a win state, and the player wants to win. But the whole point of lovecraftian horror is the feeling of being the fish in the bowl, the mouse looking at the cat, the ant in front of a true higher civilization that it can't even begin to comprehend.
Those who wrote more about the creatures / great old ones / aesthetics stuff more than focusing on the feeling of powerlessness just didn't understand.

I am of the opinion that you could write something that feels every bit Lovecraft without ever using one of his aesthetics or cosmology, as long as you can evoke that feeling of being irrelevant existences in a cold, uncaring universe.

[rusty_shackleford]

steampunk is retarded as shit because it's basically "wow what if they had advanced machines… POWERED BY ...STEAM??? WHOA!!!!" That's the entire genre.

It's just retrofuturism applied to an older era than usual. People don't whine when Fallout shows the future partly as imagined in the 50s and 80s but somehow steampunk is always offensive?

So, there's two parts here.

It depends entirely on how far you stretch plausible. The movie Alien is retrofuturism, despite it using technology that was current when it was made. But it makes sense and is plausible. It could be explained as simple as the computers used are common for said vessels because they're certified and have decades of proven reliability.
Whereas, contrast this with the ridiculousness of Not-Arcanum-2's video from InXile:

This is just ridiculous.
And if you missed it, yes, this is really from InXile: viewtopic.php?p=13906-clockwork-revolut ... roika-devs

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Arcanum, the most prominent example of 'steampunk' in RPGs, is not futuristic. Again, another knock against Arcanum being 'steampunk', and I simply say it's not at all. Not everything Victorian and/or inspired by the industrial revolution is inherently steampunk. It's a fantasy period piece. In the same way Standard Fantasy Setting is some vague mashup of Ye Olde Angleland with magic, Arcanum is Ye Not Quite So Olde Angleland with magic.

[Tweed]

The problem is that garbage like that has little to do with Steampunk in general and is used more as a license to make tons of retarded, quirky shit covered in brass. No one is probably interested in trying to make an actual Steampunk game, they're only interested in the aesthetics.

[Lutte]

Arcanum, the most prominent example of 'steampunk' in RPGs, is not futuristic

That's actually a good point. It has a few out of place things like the mechanized arachnid but the overall level of civilization of the world is more realistic to the industrial era than it is futuristic. In many ways, it is less forward thinking and imaginative than literature written in the actual 1800s. Still remains my favorite RPG, and we probably shouldn't expect too much from video games writers.

Whereas, contrast this with the ridiculousness of Not-Arcanum-2's video from InXile:

Looks like redditor marketing material. I can already imagine the numerous land whales cosplaying in victorian clothing adorned with useless gears. It's clear the choice of setting was made to sell something to a loyal niche more than out of inspired artistic considerations.

[Emphyrio]

I haven't seen Bioshock described as steampunk. Maybe Bioshock Infinite... almost, kinda, not really.

The original Bioshock is definitely more steampunk than most things moderntard call steampunk just because there's a lot of unneeded gears on armor sets.

Is Andrew Ryan based on Nemo for sure? Always thought he was a combination of Ayn Rand and the creator's loxism (A. Ryan). Bioshock 1 is not set in Verne's period, and the art deco look imitates the famous covers of Ayn Rand's books.

I am not the illithid in the writer's brain, I dunno what things he read and I'm not the sort to read hundreds of interviews. What I do know though is that I did read Leagues and it's impossible not to see some of Captain Nemo in Andrew Ryan's experience of life. If you've experienced both things then the similarities couldn't be more obvious.
Of course, there's also the Ayn Rand influences, but she herself was inspired by the writers of the 1800s.
The aesthetics of art deco are indeed anachronistic to the vibes and themes of the game, which from a writing point of view is firmly rooted in the expectations of the genre. But even with the heavy art deco presence, there's quite a few direct steampunk influences on visuals. You can't look at a Big Daddy and not think "yeah, that looks like an armor version of a Verne suit".

The hate on steampunk is for the stuff that all looks the same, following a generic style sheet, like Rusty's game.

Steampunk as a genre is not at fault for what people did with it. The person who coined the term for the first time to describe a type of literature didn't have any of this in mind. There's millions of things you can do with "the future and fantasy as perceived by people who lived in the era of steam power, and before the use of transistors". Frankenstein was written in 1818, that's an industrial revolution era novel exploring the idea of man creating artificial man and the consequences of such perversion of life not through mysticism but through the scientific method. You can even see it as one of the first novels to prop up sci-fi as a genre. It's a good example of the sort of inspiration you can have to build upon when you write retrofuturism of that era.

I don't know what you mean by "Steampunk as a genre is not at fault for what people did with it." What is the genre except the media it contains? There might be good steampunk media somewhere, but I haven't seen it.

Bioshock is set in the 1960s. Big Daddy looks like a normal diving suit from that era. The art deco stuff isn't "anachronistic", it's intended to look old-fashioned by the standards of 1960 because the city is run-down. The fantasy element in the game isn't advanced steam technology, it's the magic sea slugs or whatever. Bioshock did not market itself as "steampunk".

There is nothing wrong with fantasy that's set in the past. There's nothing wrong with retrofurism. There are good examples of both. I haven't ever seen a good example of media that self-marketted as steampunk. Frankenstein is not steampunk.

Are you talking about some apirational, platonic ideal of steampunk? If you concede that the aesthetic is ugly, what are you defending?

[Emphyrio]

The problem is that garbage like that has little to do with Steampunk in general and is used more as a license to make tons of retarded, quirky shit covered in brass. No one is probably interested in trying to make an actual Steampunk game, they're only interested in the aesthetics.

What is "steampunk in general"? What is an "actual" steampunk game besides the aesthetics?

[Acrux]

I don't know what you mean by "Steampunk as a genre is not at fault for what people did with it." What is the genre except the media it contains? There might be good steampunk media somewhere, but I haven't seen it.

The Anubis Gates is probably the best steampunk novel that's been written, and it has nothing of the glued-on cogs and such that the genre has come to mean. Same with Morlock Night. Now, you can make an argument that steampunk now means just the aesthetics, and that those are just fantasy novels set in a Victorian time period (to rusty's point). But @Tweeds point (and I agree with it) is that the genre began from that foundation and has changed to become what it is now.

(As an aside, a good case could be made for The Wild, Wild West (the original 1960s TV series) as proto-steampunk media, and it was good. It still holds up imho.)

[maidenhaver]

Shadow of the Road is one of those games, or should it become a game, that is only going to be hurt by attaching steampunk to it. They have to create non-shit looking steampunk gadgets and men to battle, with mechanics so that fighting the steampunk English isn't impossible, when they've got a solid premise already: a stealth action tactics in late Tokugawa. Devs are stupid.

[Emphyrio]

Shadow of the Road is one of those games, or should it become a game, that is only going to be hurt by attaching steampunk to it. They have to create non-shit looking steampunk gadgets and men to battle, with mechanics so that fighting the steampunk English isn't impossible, when they've got a solid premise already: a stealth action tactics in late Tokugawa. Devs are stupid.

what they have now is a little dull but not visually offensive like the inexile stuff.

putting giant robots in is a good narrative excuse to diversify the enemies and keep battles fresh with different mechanics.

adding little bits of "steampunk" to fantasy games is super common now, i assume for that reason. that seems to work better than making steampunk the entire setting.

[Emphyrio]

the d&d style elfs and dwarfs are 100x more offensive than the steampunk gears tbh. They're lazy enough in a medieval setting. Putting them in a modern setting is even worse.

here's some races for an industrial fantasy setting just off the top of my head:

• Bird people. Factory pollution fucks up their eggs. At the same time, they don't respect things like airship right-of-way and cause huge disasters. A pathetic, dying race, they get little sympathy, partly their own fault. They range from ugly and stupid vulture-like harpies to beautifully plumed, noble seraphs. The seraphs are also called angels and faries, and sometimes use magic to help individual humans who earn their sympathy, especially children and fair adolescents. Harpies form small gangs and spend a lot of time making shoddy magical charms and casting dubiously effectual curses.

• Ant men. About the size of a child. They take jobs in the factories, work harder than humans, take less pay, never complain about the conditions. Hated by working men, loved by factory owners and coddled by the authorities. Their docility is a ruse. They are actually very driven, warlike, and spiteful. In public they turn the other cheek to the abuse they suffer, in the dark they make ruthless plots to remove all obstacles to their master plan. They have constructed a secret maze of tunnels under the cities. Many working men intuit the ant's malevolence, but the government ministers write this off as bigotry.

• Goat-men, also called satyrs or incubi. Strongly magical, large, charming in a bestial way. Mostly stay in the countryside where they often lead disaffected humans in sex-cults, unless the goatmen's insatiable lust draws them to the cities. Individually very dangerous but not capable of social organization larger than local cults. They reproduce with human women, who can bear a litter of 6-8 goatman kids, which renders the women barren to human children. All attempts to destroy the goatman race have been unsuccesful, but there is enthusiasm for a new pogrom which might succeed with the help of modern weapons. Not all human men are hostile to the goats because the goats trade access to their harems and magic.

[Humbaba]

Shadow over Innsmouth and Herbert West Reanimator are true classics

Shadow over Innsmouth is just NOOOOO I'M CHASED BY WEIRD FISH PEOPLE HELP and ends with NOOOOOO I'M A FISH PERSON MYSELF BECAUSE OF RACE MIXING AAAAAAAHHH. Shit's boring, it's just being copied by everyone because for some reason that story got a lot of traction at some point in time.




-Humbaba

[Humbaba]

HaQmasters: "eugh I hate non-human races, they're just humans but x!"

Also HaQmasters:

here's some races for an industrial fantasy setting just off the top of my head:
Bird people. Factory pollution fucks up their eggs. At the same time, they don't respect things like airship right-of-way and cause huge disasters. A pathetic, dying race, they get little sympathy, partly their own fault. They range from ugly and stupid vulture-like harpies to beautifully plumed, noble seraphs. The seraphs are also called angels and faries, and sometimes use magic to help individual humans who earn their sympathy, especially children and fair adolescents. Harpies form small gangs and spend a lot of time making shoddy magical charms and casting dubiously effectual curses.
Ant men. About the size of a child. They take jobs in the factories, work harder than humans, take less pay, never complain about the conditions. Hated by working men, loved by factory owners and coddled by the authorities. Their docility is a ruse. They are actually very driven, warlike, and spiteful. In public they turn the other cheek to the abuse they suffer, in the dark they make ruthless plots to remove all obstacles to their master plan. They have constructed a secret maze of tunnels under the cities. Many working men intuit the ant's malevolence, but the government ministers write this off as bigotry.
Goat-men, also called satyrs or incubi. Strongly magical, large, charming in a bestial way. Mostly stay in the countryside where they often lead disaffected humans in sex-cults, unless the goatmen's insatiable lust draws them to the cities. Individually very dangerous but not capable of social organization larger than local cults. They reproduce with human women, who can bear a litter of 6-8 goatman kids, which renders the women barren to human children. All attempts to destroy the goatman race have been unsuccesful, but there is enthusiasm for a new pogrom which might succeed with the help of modern weapons. Not all human men are hostile to the goats because the goats trade access to their harems and magic.

-Humbaba

[Atlantico]

it's impossible not to see some of Captain Nemo in Andrew Ryan's experience of life

There's definitely Captain Nemo influences with Ryan/Bioshock, both his technological genius, XIX century aesthetic of certain things

The Juden influence is by far the most dominating. Ryan is a Juden and that aspect characterizes the entire game in the most profound way.

[Emphyrio]

HaQmasters: "eugh I hate non-human races, they're just humans but x!"

Also HaQmasters:

i like you, so i won't point out the humor in a turk not understanding the difference between bugs, goats and humans.

[Segata]

New blogpost https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 4440448552

In short: