A boy. A family of inventors. An enormous steampunk airship packed wall-to-wall with robots that have, predictably, gone full murder-mode. They Will Come is a steampunk adventure/puzzle game from Game Pop Studio, and the premise is exactly as good as it sounds: you play as Benjamin, a kid who has to sneak through his own home while armies of machines try to end him. The aesthetic is pure Punk gold — clockwork automatons, airship corridors, brass-and-steam everything — and the gameplay has you solving environmental puzzles with small helper bots called Embots, plus the occasional nuclear option of unleashing your own heavy robot, Talus, when subtlety is no longer on the menu.

This is, functionally, what the Omega7Red Formulae produces when you feed it “Home Alone” and a Jules Verne novel at the same time. The Doctor approves. It hits PC (Steam) this month, July 2026, so there is no excuse not to wishlist it immediately and report back.

Via: WorthPlaying

You’re a gambler. The kingdom’s punishment for gambling is getting thrown into a giant industrial prison called the King’s Well, a massive mechanical pit of rusted gears, shadowy tunnels, and relentless contraptions that want you dead. The only way out is up, and the only weapons you have are a deck of cards and whatever cunning the Formula left you with. Turkish indie studio Fire Brick Games has built a dark steampunk roguelite poker deckbuilder that fuses Balatro-style card mechanics with grim, clanking Victorian-industrial atmosphere, and the demo is on Steam right now. Q3 2026 for the full release.

The core gimmick is genuinely clever: you feed cards into rusted machines to trigger attacks, defenses, and special effects, or you hold them and cash in a poker hand for bigger bonuses. Every run is a different build, every machine has different slot requirements, and the four starting gamblers (including the Iron Veteran and the High Roller, because of course) each play differently. It’s Slay the Spire meets a steam-powered loan shark, and The Doctor approves of every single gear-grinding, card-flipping second of it. High-5, Fire Brick.

Go wishlist it. Go play the demo. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-timed Full House against a rusted kill-machine comes close. Via: King’s Well on Steam

Chaosium, the house that gave us Call of Cthulhu and a respectable body count of player characters, just announced a brand-new tabletop RPG: Time Without Tide. The setting is a fog-choked, post-apocalyptic faux-Victorian world overrun with robots, magic, and (presumably) orphans with serious anger management issues. You play a Delver: someone whose job description is basically “go outside into the horrifying Fog and find out what’s in it.” Spoiler: it’s probably not a tea party.

And here’s the part that has The Doctor’s attention: they’re not using BRP. This is a whole new engine, purpose-built for tactical combat and what the BackerKit page calls “highly customisable character development” (vehicles, gear, companions, mutant powers). So Chaosium built a steampunk game from scratch instead of just bolting Victorian hats onto their existing system. That is either brilliantly committed or magnificently ambitious. Possibly both. The Formula approves of both.

It’s not live yet; the BackerKit campaign is coming. Watch the pre-launch page, get on the list, and tell them The Doctor sent you. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-timed crowdfunding notification is a solid third place.

Via: Bell of Lost Souls

Catalyst Game Labs just dropped the Frostpunk RPG: Core Rulebook into retail this week, and yes, the Formulae approves. The video game already nailed the SteamPunk-survival-city-building sweet spot (coal-fired generators, the last city on Earth, morally crushing choices before your morning tea), and now 11 bit Studios and Catalyst have handed you the keys to run that frozen nightmare yourself at a tabletop. Players manage the last city on Earth as resources run out, navigate Hope and Discontent city mechanics, and apparently make each other miserable with the Dice Core engine. $49.99 MSRP. That is a bargain for the number of friendships you will destroy.

The Doctor has been watching Frostpunk eat city-builders alive since the original launched, and the sequel has only gotten meaner, so a full tabletop adaptation was, frankly, overdue. If your game group survived Pandemic with their relationships intact, consider this the next stress test. Just remember: the law must be passed. It’s always the law.

Good job, high‑5, Catalyst. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-timed coal shortage comes close. Via: ICv2

inXile Entertainment just dropped a new Clockwork Revolution trailer at the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, and the Doctor approves. We’re talking a first-person steampunk RPG set in Avalon, a Victorian metropolis ruled by a tyrant named Lady Ironwood who has been quietly rewriting history via time-travel device to keep her boot on everyone’s neck. You play Morgan Vanette, a street-gang scrapper from the wrong side of the tracks, who gets hold of a Chronometer and starts kicking the legs out from under her carefully curated timeline. BioShock Infinite called, it wants its DNA back, and inXile said: fine, we’ll take it.

The new footage shows off character creation, weapon blueprinting (you carry ONE gun the whole game and build it into a monster), steampunk gadgets as deployables, and the class-war subtext is about as subtle as a wrench to the faceplate. The Formula was applied to “first-person RPG” and the result is grand airships, clockwork automatons, and a city that changes shape depending on which moments you’ve gone back and corrupted. Time travel plus consequences plus gears equals a delivery mechanism for EXACTLY the kind of retrofuturist power fantasy this blog exists to document. It’s currently slated for 2027 on PC and Xbox Series, so yes, patience will be required. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Via: Sortiraparis | Wishlist on Steam

You can thank “batman-n-bananas” (or just Tasha) on Deviant Art for this one.  We really like it when people use that imagination to make things that poke holes in science, and just imagine all the science we’ll get out of this baby.  At least one or two good train wrecks, and a falling airship.  That’s not a tragedy, that’s science – with holes.  Good job Tasha, high-5!

“Alright this next test may involve trace amounts of time travel. So word of advice: if you meet yourself on the testing track don’t make eye contact. Lab boys tell me that’ll wipe out time – entirely. Forward and backward. So do both of yourselves a favor and let that handsome devil go about his business.”

 As usual, click on the image and then zoom in to see detail.

Somebody has a serious hobby.  Although, I’m not sure that’s a girl in there.  Still, it’s pretty cool.

Finally, a high-end pure Steampunk game.  Unlike Bioshock 1 & 2 which takes place between 1960 and 1968 making them Deiselpunk, Bioshock Infinite takes place in 1912 in the weaponized sky city of Columbia.  The failed utopia is reminiscent of the 1893 World’s Fair and is built on the idea of American exceptionalism.  Watch the trailer:

A moment’s respite. Elizabeth and Booker walk towards a bridge, when the familiar metallic clomp of a “Daddy” echoes around. This isn’t a mule, although it’s a more human Daddy than the diving suited huggables of rapture: a man’s face, black parted hair and elaborate moustache, peeks out above a suit that exaggerates his body. He has giant, crushing hands, pistons powering his movements. He’s mostly a power boss: bashing, grabbing, tearing. It’s clear that Elizabeth’s role is something of a co-op partner. Her and Booker’s powers combine to be more powerful than on their own, but she also seems to have more specificity about her uses. This fight is resolved when the pair of you bring the bridge crashing down on the Daddy’s body, slicing through the ground as the bridge support hits it. He scrambles at the crumbling structure with his oversized hands before sliding off Columbia.

BioShock and BioShock 2 sported multiple endings (good/evil) depending on the player’s ethical choices.  This made for a good interactive narrative, and a sound story altogether.  These games are also well-respected first-person shooters.  Typically, I’m cautious with game purchases and prefer to rent them first, but based on my past experiences with the BioShock games, I will buy BioShock Infinite blindfolded.

Via: PC Gamer

There’s a new game on Xbox LIVE Arcade (XBLA) called Aqua, a SteamPunk naval-action shooter.  It’s not bad at all, except I would have done it with sky-pirates.

Aqua is a stylish steampunk naval-action shooter for Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game is driven by an entertaining story-campaign with beautiful hand-drawn comics and features a unique, distinctive neo-Victorian art-style. Steer your ship into the middle of a raging naval war, where masses of enemies and allies engage in real-time operations over large, multi-screen maps. Equip your ship, choose your tactics and form your own special squadron to support you in battle, issuing offensive and defensive orders to overcome huge fleets of enemy ships, submarines, airplanes and defensive installations.

Aqua is a good deal at 800 Microsoft Credits, or $9.99.  While it’s not as intense a game as Toy Soldiers, nor as mind-bending as Portal, it’s easy and fun.  The storyline and plot are straightforward, and the voice acting makes me feel like the game is aimed towards pre-teens, but I don’t care.  It’s nice to have a milder kind of game to play.  I give it 3 out of 5 Omegas.  The good news is that like any XBLA game, you can download the trial version and try it for free.

Visit the game’s official website: http://aqua-the-game.com

Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test.  WANT!  My new hero at wonderlandblog.com (never heard of him before) made a “Companion Cube” cupboard.  The Companion Cube is a surprisingly overly popular prop from the game Portal.  Portal is one of the games from The Orange Box and is separately available from the Xbox Live Arcade.  If you have a 360, get the Portal demo on XBLA, it’s a very fun game…

Anyways, the carpenter here has thoroughly documented how to create one for yourself.  Get info on The Orange Box too.  Portal is one of the funnest games I’ve ever played…