ThomasB
With the successful release of the alpha version of Steam Heart, I came to a point where the game became more like a learning platform rather than a full-scale game in the future.
One evening, back in 2021, a new level in the game was created and an interesting ability was added to the robot – the ability to build blocks and objects in the world. At that time I figured that the most interesting puzzle and the solution will be the puzzle that was created organically, and the solution that depend on the user’s creativity. All in all, I loved Factorio and figured I need to move Steam Heart into factory building, survival, and exploration space.
Before our robot – the main protagonist was copied to a new universe, I had a few game ideas that I tried:
Old London Bridge
Robot awakens in one of the sewers and when the player exits them, he ends up on the bridge with houses on both sides. The game environment is open, and events happen with no specific sequence, meaning that whatever sequence the player will chose – will change the following events and story accordingly.
Let’s say the main protagonist meets “the Claw” – a robot in one of the warehouses, and it asks us to get a bucket of oil. The robot then meets “Gear Master” – another robot that resides in a little mechanical store. Gear Master asks for a bucket of oil as well, and depending on whom the player brings the bucket – another character will suffer, resulting in the player getting some specific item and not getting another one. This resulting item will affect a future interaction leading to one of the endings in the game.
City in the Sky
A robot is a maintenance machine in one of the sky cities – a city raised above the ground on thick concrete pillars. These cities were built after the Earth’s ground became contaminated as a last resort for humanity. But many cities were abandoned including the one that the player gets to experience first.
picture of the drawing …
The main protagonist awakens and tries to restore power and the water tower first, as time goes by, the player acquires some resources from destroyed buildings and builds new workshop buildings. Supplies still can be purchased from one of the automated mining stations below and are being sent to the city using zeppelin.
The more city is restored – the more resources the player gets to restore the city’s zeppelin. The last one will allow players to travel with full control of the ship to nearby cities.
Another interesting idea was to make a city in the base of a giant zeppelin – a stranding cities approach
A new Steam Factory Game
At the end of the list of all the ideas, one stood out the most. I wanted the game to have endless puzzles and a survival element. That’s when a robot from Steam Heart was drugged into a new game environment, was given tools to dig, machines to process resources, and a steam bar to keep him alive. The environment itself is quite unique for such game, it is a world with 2D side perspective but 3D freedom of move
