Attack of the Clockwork Army

by Felicity Banks profile

Part of Steampunk Australia
Science Fiction
2015

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Steampunk gem, May 1, 2016

Alright, I'm bias. I love steampunk and want to see more at it - this is a great story and it promotes something that I love - so I'm giving it 5 stars.

Read it, demand more of it!

As an aside, my love was taken - I spent whole minutes wallowing in the misery of unrequited love
. . . such is life : ) and I have respect for any author who is brave enough to depart from the 'yes every man/woman is available and sexually interested in you' automatic, that aspiring authors (like myself) gravitate to to garner cheap likes

Well done Felicity Banks

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A steampunk game in pseudo-historic Australia with metal magic, February 3, 2016

Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of Banks' games, and I received an advance copy of this game when I told her I wanted to review it.

Clockwork Army is a Choicescript game set in historic Australia, with bits in Britain. The game uses a magic system that the author has developed for some time, including in her gamebook 'It Started When the Flag Fell'. This system is a metal system, a bit reminiscent of the Mistborn system. Different metals have different properties; lead enhances emotions, while the ultra-rare aluminum enhances agility.

The setting is in colonial Australia, with the Australians building up to a revolt against the redcoats. However, this Australia is heavily mechanized in a steampunk fashion. Metal corsets that grant abilities, hybrid animal-machines, and even cloud harvesters abound.

The story revolves around a family that has been scattered across the earth, who are trying to get back together. Like most Choicescript games, you have a choice of gender, name/ethnicity, and romantic interests.

The only other review I've seen of the game so far is on an app store and says it's the worst choice of games game they've ever seen. I suspect that they've only tried the first two (free) chapters, because these mostly consist of setting up the backstory and the magic system. The convolutedness of the magic system ends up requiring a lot of 'As you know...' exposition at the beginning.

But the later chapters are where things really take off. Having just finished The Shadow in The Cathedral by Jon Ingold and Ian Finley, I was hungry for more steampunk/clockwork creatures, and I wasn't disappointed. (Actually, thinking about it now, this game has the same kind of story that I was hoping for in the never-finished sequel to that game).

Anyways, things get heated, and the clockwork creations grow more and more complicated. I think it's impossible to really lose (in the sense of not getting a complete ending), but I did not achieve my character's original goals.

That was one area that I had trouble with: roleplaying the character. I had a sort of pacifist in mind that would always prefer thinking and spying over direct combat, but I found that the game penalized this behavior a few times. Also, my preferred love interest turned out to be taken, but I quickly mended my broken heart and moved on.

The last thing I should mention is that this game and Banks' gamebook contain a great deal of detail about historic Australia. Some people are turned off by this, but I enjoyed it.

Anyways, if you want to get a feel for the game before buying, try the first two chapters, but also see her gamebook I mentioned above to get more of a taste of this setting and magic system.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Steampunk with an Australian twist, November 9, 2015

Full disclosure - I received a free copy of this game to review. Also I’m Australian.

If you played 80 Days and were disappointed at how little content there was in Australia, then I strongly recommend Attack of the Clockwork Army. The story starts in England, but quickly moves to a Victorian era steampunk Australia.

Blending adventure and action, this local Aussie author paints a fascinating alternate reality Australia complete with all the trappings a fan of steampunk would want and a metal based magic system thrown into the mix. The writing is easy to read with vivid descriptions and reasonably compelling characters.

My only real issue was with one of the interactions in the story. Understanding the limitations of branching narrative, I’m fairly forgiving of choices that result in the same outcome, and indeed the author handles these quite well, but one particular choice at the end had a different problem. I chose what seemed one of the safer options, but it resulted in my sudden and unexpected death, softened only by the fact that I died helping Australia to defeat its British oppressors. Look, I was in the middle of the battlefield, so maybe I should have seen it coming, but still, some options to at least try to dodge or fight off my attacker would have made it feel like a fairer ending.

In spite of this, the story is a very enjoyable romp, well worth the read. It also left me curious to read more. Attack of the Clockwork Army only scratches the surface of this alternate Australia and I hope to see more stories (interactive or otherwise) set there.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Entertaining steampunk storygame set in Australia, November 7, 2015

(I received an advance copy of this game in exchange for reviewing.)

Attack of the Clockwork Army is a steampunk-flavored game set in England and colonial Australia. You play the scion of a once-wealthy family fallen on hard times, and the plot is kicked off when you discover that your long-lost sister is alive and living somewhere in the Australian outback. Arriving in Australia, you find yourself caught between loyalists and revolutionaries, and have to decide where your ultimate loyalties lie while adventuring through the wilderness.

The central conceit of the game’s steampunkiness is that metals have different inherent characteristics, almost magical in nature, which can be exploited when using them in tools and mechanisms. Which goes a long way towards explaining how people in Victorian England are able to build working robots and such. As you progress through the game, you have the chance to affect your stats by ‘activating’ different metals that you choose, which allow you to do different things.

I love a good well-thought-out setting, and I could tell that the world was thoroughly planned (there are novels in the works); the story itself did feel a little rushed in places, and I found myself wishing that that game would have given the player more time to explore certain aspects of the setting. That would have both helped flesh out the world and allowed the player to make a more meaningful choice about what faction to lend support to. As it was, I had the impression of a vast and intricate world, but one I didn’t always get to see in as much detail as I might have hoped.

The first two chapters of the game are available to play for free, so it's well worth checking it out to see if you like it, especially if you're a fan of historical and steampunk fantasy.

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