Hey everyone! Welcome to my first devlog, where I'll be diving into my passion project, Steampunch. I'll share what I've developed so far and give you some insight into where I'm headed next. It’s going to be a bit long, but I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible. 😊

Who Am I?

First off, I’m Pedro, but you can call me Raven. I’m currently finishing my master’s thesis in computer science, and like many of you might guess, my dream is to develop video games. Steampunch is a project that’s been close to my heart since 2017. It actually started as a high school project, so its scope and technology were quite limited back then. Fast forward to 2022, when I decided to revisit the game, this time with Unity, to gain practical game development experience. I rewrote everything from scratch, and that version is what I’m currently working on!

What is Steampunch?

Steampunch is a semi-open world game with a blend of investigation and RPG elements, set in a fictional steampunk city inspired by 19th-century London. 🚂🔍

You’ll play as the founder of a new investigation agency, solving cases involving humans with mysterious demonic powers. You can explore the city, search for clues, interact with NPCs, and recruit characters into your agency by building relationships with them.

Combat System ⚔️

The core of Steampunch’s gameplay revolves around grid-based, turn-based combat. You control a team of three characters in tactical encounters where positioning and environment interaction are crucial. You can manipulate objects, alter terrain, and use these elements to gain an edge in battle. The enemy AI is designed to be adaptive, learning from your strategies, which keeps each encounter fresh and challenging.

Some of my inspirations for Steampunch are Stardew Valley, Persona 5, and Baldur's Gate 3—three of my absolute favorite games! 🎮

Current Features of Steampunch

Right now, the focus is mainly on the combat system and its mechanics, as I want this to be one of the standout features of the game. Here’s a breakdown of what’s already implemented:

Combat Overview

The combat system is designed around tactical depth. You’ll manage a team of up to three characters, each with their own resources and abilities, in a turn-based, grid-based battlefield. You can also leverage environmental elements—like objects on the battlefield or creating elemental conditions to affect combat.

The elemental weakness system is a bit different from what you might be used to. Characters and items can inflict elemental damage and debuffs, but an enemy’s elemental weakness only triggers if they are already affected by a corresponding elemental debuff. For example:

• If you hit a frozen enemy with a fire attack, it deals double damage.
• If the enemy is wet, it deals half damage.
• No debuff? Normal damage.

The combat is complex but rewarding. The more you invest in learning the mechanics and interactions, the more satisfying it becomes to defeat the toughest foes. The enemy AI is designed to challenge you—they can use all the same features you can, and they’ll adapt to your playstyle (though this part isn’t fully implemented yet).

Exploration

In the current version, you can start a new game and explore a simple map I’ve created. There are two NPCs for now: one serves as a shopkeeper, and the other allows you to enter the combat scenario.

Controls

• WASD - Move camera
• Mouse Wheel - Zoom
• I - Character Information Menu
• Esc - Open Menu
• Space - Center Character
• Left Mouse Click - Confirm Action
• X - Interact with NPCs

Combat Buttons

• Basic Attack - Standard attack for the selected character.
• Inventory - Opens the inventory.
• Skills - Swaps the action buttons for the character’s four skills.
• Move - Shows the character's movement range.
• Ultimate - Only available when the ultimate bar is full; unleashes the ultimate ability.
• Interact - Available when a character can interact with objects.
• Cancel - Cancels the current action.
• Skip - Skips the character's turn.
• Back - Resets the action buttons to their default state.

During combat, you can interact with barrels and other objects on the map, use items, and explore elemental interactions. I’ll dive deeper into combat mechanics in a future devlog, but for now, I encourage you to give it a try! 😄

What's Next? 🛠️

While the groundwork for the combat system is solid, there’s a lot more to come. I’m planning to:

• Add more interactable items in the environment.
• Introduce additional combat items.
• Define character abilities and their special interactions.
• Expand the variety of combat scenarios.

At the moment, I’m focusing on developing the game design document (GDD), which will outline all the key aspects of the game—characters, story, gameplay loop, combat mechanics, and more. Once the GDD is in a good place, I’ll start fleshing out each unique character, their backstory, abilities, art style, and animations. After that, I’ll integrate everything into the current build, though this will take some time.

Final Thoughts

For now, Steampunch is free while in development, but if you want to support me and buy me a coffee, I’d really appreciate it! ☕️

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog! I hope it gave you a good overview of the project, and I look forward to sharing more updates soon. See you in the next devlog! 👾

Raven Zero