Clockwork Empires looks like it will scratch all sorts of itches, but unlike lucky blighters like Rob, I’ve not been able to get near it. Soon, though. Soon. Gaslamp is planning to ease open the door with a spot of early access, but that’s been pushed back. Only until the summer.
Gaslamp doesn’t want to push the game out the door too early, the developer has said. Sensible lot, those Gaslamp folk.
“We have spent an intense few weeks considering our plans for the next few months, and as a result, we’ve decided to push back early access of Clockwork Empires to the summer,” Gaslamp’s Daniel Jacobson said. It’s a short delay from our original release window for early access, but a delay nonetheless.
Almost everyone who has played the current version of Clockwork Empires can see the promise of what we want the game to be when it’s done. The message that we keep hearing is ‘don’t force this game out the door until it’s ready, because it will be really special when it is’, and we want it to be there when you play it. In the spirit of transparency, starting early access this spring would not allow us to give you that – close, but not quite hitting the mark yet.”
Rob had a chat with the devs at GDC after checking out the demo. Read his words and get a bit of insight. “To understand what makes Clockwork so promising, however, you have to understand just how effortlessly creative and quirky the developers at Gaslamp Games are. During my meeting with them at the end of GDC, on a day when everyone was just slogging through the final hours of the week-long grind, they seemed like a bunch of children playing “let’s pretend” in a sandbox. And as with many children’s games, whose narratives and meanings are impenetrable to adults, their imagination runs in some truly macabre directions.”
Cheers, RPS.