A two-person team (Team Machiavelli, published by IndieArk) built a steampunk action-RPG tower-defense hybrid and somehow made it Very Positive on Steam with over 600 reviews. You play Bellator: an alchemically enhanced super-soldier reclaiming a castle level by level, setting traps, building towers, crafting randomized weapons, and applying a menu of conditions to the horde (slow, stun, burn, freeze, the full cocktail). The levels run from mine shafts under the castle to engineering forges to eerily silent lecture halls where all the alchemists have apparently evacuated, which: good call, alchemists.

The Formulae approves. Alchemy is proto-SteamPunk chemistry: you’re just running the experiment at scale, with a blunderbuss. Two people built this. TWO. The Doctor has shipped code with a team of twelve and produced something considerably less impressive. High-5, Team Machiavelli. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but apparently a two-person shop with pixel art and randomized loot comes close.

Via: Steam

Flying pirate ship. Steampunk floating islands. Ancient Gods who want you very, very dead. Turn-based tactical combat where one bad move ends the whole run. Oh, and Lovecraftian atmosphere baked straight into the pixel art. The Doctor approves, and The Doctor does not approve of just anything. Dead Weight drops on Steam July 16 for the extremely reasonable sum of $12.99, and it has already racked up over 120,000 wishlists, which means you people have taste.

Here is what you are signing up for: captain a steam-powered airship across a procedurally generated world, recruit a crew of four distinct characters through branching skill trees, and then get absolutely worked over by compact tactical battlefields where every single hex counts. The dev cites Into the Breach and Final Fantasy Tactics as combat inspirations, which is a sentence that should make any self-respecting tactician sit up straighter. Throw in random events, fatigue, madness mechanics, and late-game crisis events that can blow the whole run sideways, and you have a roguelite that will eat your weekend like an Ancient God eats a poorly-positioned barbarian.

There is a free Prologue available on the Steam page right now, so you have zero excuses not to wishlist it and give it a spin before launch. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-placed broadside from a flying steampunk pirate ship comes close. High-5, Klukva Games.

Via: Steam (Dead Weight)