#steamworld

Did Primus ever *properly* infiltrate the Navy or was it just his army pretending to be the Navybots? Was Batterfaux ever an actual commander and Primus just scrapped that guy and took over, or was Batterfaux a completely made up guy? Did Batterfaux just kind of show up, assert himself as commander, and everyone just ran with it?

1. Are there any fun facts you can give about him?

2. When is Lord Admirals birthday?

3. What was Lord Admiral Pistons Development like?

4. Was Lord Admiral elected into power or was it passed down?

5. Do royalists and the Navy have the same branch of government?

6. one of my friends wanted to ask, "does Admiral Piston stand at the highest seat of power in all the Royalist Splinter Factions, or is there a New Red Queen out in Space somewhere?"

7. What's the most sold Admiral Piston Merchandise in East Carribea?

8. another friend wanted to ask; "Does he wear an intoxicatingly strong cologne that he uses way too much of and it gives people headaches"

9. Is Lord Admiral single?

10. would lord admiral piston like me at all

Asking the real questions, I like that

1. Are there any fun facts you can give about him?

If you shoot off his hat, you'll notice that his hair is mostly a wig

2. When is Lord Admirals birthday?

Whenever he feels like having one 3. What was Lord Admiral Pistons Development like?

For as long as I was on the project, game director Olle Håkansson was always clear we needed a "big funny Fabio-esque character that loved himself and that was generally adored" for one of the bosses. He was refered to as "Fabio" for a long time haha. I'll admit it took some time for him to grow on me, but I loved him more and more the more we pushed it. I actually ended up recording the "noise acting" for him, so when your battling him and he does his laugh, it's me!

4. Was Lord Admiral elected into power or was it passed down?

Oh it was most certainly nepotism all the way

5. Do royalists and the Navy have the same branch of government?

Yes, but feels like they've slowly started drifting apart since the defeat of the Red Queen in Heist 1 6. One of my friends wanted to ask, "does Admiral Piston stand at the highest seat of power in all the Royalist Splinter Factions, or is there a New Red Queen out in Space somewhere?"

We never decided in detail what the full royalist faction looks like in detail post Heist 1, only that it for sure had declined. But I'm certain Piston wasn't top dog for the full thing, he'd only been handed control of the specific shard the game takes place on. Was his amibiton to one day rule the entire royalist faction? For sure! 7. What's the most sold Admiral Piston Merchandise in East Carribea?

A pillow with his face on it 8. another friend wanted to ask; "Does he wear an intoxicatingly strong cologne that he uses way too much of and it gives people headaches"

Most def

9. Is Lord Admiral single?

On this the gossip mags in East Carribea fiercely argue

10. would lord admiral piston like me at all

How was disability usually handled internally in Steamworld? I figure you’d know the most as the story lead for Heist 2 specifically (as it’s a crucial part of that game) but I think it’s notable that prosthetics and smaller things like Beacon’s stutter (and Rabbit’s but you guys didn’t make her) are a part of the world that are embraced openly despite being “fixable” in a literal sense. Quincy gaining his mom’s arm is also something that feels like it’s handled with more deliberate tact, in that it’s still visibly different but more importantly in that the difficulties that come with suddenly gaining a new limb are still experienced directly by the player and acknowledged by other characters, and Piper’s (definitely subtle compared to the rest of the game) arc with coming to terms with disabling illness and injuries. I think my question here is mostly “how much of this is intentional, and how was that intentionality handled behind the scenes to do it justice, and how much of that was just going ‘prosthetics/peg legs are awesome let’s stick that on the design’?”

Also I just have a related question: was there a planned idea of Orik having an arm disability (like limited mobility) or is that an example of really obvious accidental subtext? I’m moreso curious in this case because I know there’s a lot of love and backstory that went into the Quest characters that never gets mentioned in-game.

Great question!

We spoke about it a lot, especially surrounding Quincy and his arm. We did not want to end up doing something that could feel like "Hey, here's your mom's arm! You're not broken anymore, yaaay!". I'm happy with wha we ended up with. I think in general when you've got robot characters, it's such a thankful language to explore human stories in different ways. You can translate something like a dissability and look at it from that robot language. What would this human expeirence look like with that type of body?

So basically, there was alot of talk behind the scenes to do it in a way we felt did it justice, but there was also a bunch of "peg legs are awesome" going on as well haha! The more central a character was, the more time we spent discusing things like this. For a random bar character, rule of cool was generally boss.

Steamcember 9: "Down with the Queen"

I enjoyed dig, it was far too short to be really satisfying but it reminded me alot of Motherlode, the old miniclip game, and ill likely get the sequal at some point if it's remotely similar. I'm enjoying Build a lot more, I already get the impression it's gonna have a similar length limitation but it reminds me of a heavily simplified version of the old Sierra city builders (Pharaoh, Zeus, Ceaser etc) combined with Dungeon Keeper, and tying the two together. Absolutely S tier combo in my mind and it at least has a variety of maps to increase the playtime.