Steam Marines v0.7.6a (Mac)
May 21, 2013 Demo 0 commentsThis is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.7.6a for Mac OS X.
Steam Marines is a squad-based Roguelike being developed by Worthless Bums. It is currently in Open Alpha (v0.7.0a) and features:
- 2D retro-styled art and turn based action.
- Procedurally Generated Levels.
- A squad of combatants fighting for their lives in monster filled levels.
- Use your squad to cover defensive positions or funnel enemies into chokepoints to blow them up.
Steampunk spaceship under attack by aliens, you say? The aim of the game is to progress through the various decks of your besieged steampunk spaceship in order to repel the alien invaders and get out of dodge. It features permadeath and will have a recruitment system. Build your squad members into deadly, long-range marksmen, or up-close-and-personal death machines. But no one is invincible, and if someone dies you'll have to replace him/her with a raw recruit. If the entire squad dies it's game over.
The game is also listed on Steam Greenlight! Please go and vote/favorite it if you enjoy the alpha!
1 comment by Worthless_Bums on May 21st, 2013
Hello, everyone!
If you enjoy Steam Marines please do head over to Steam Greenlight and vote for it!
This build brings quite a few changes. As usual the full changelog follows at the bottom of the post but here are the highlights:
High Scores!

A scoring system and a high score screen - accessible from the main menu and it pops up after squad death. Right now the scoring system is opaque but I'll be making it transparent, and adding more miscellaneous stat tracking, in the future.
Damage, Armor, and Nastiness!

The last few builds brought better group intelligence and flanking AI to the forefront of the middle game. In this build enemy health and damage was reduced across the board, but now all enemy attacks reduce target armor. The marine classes also now have base armor factored into the randomized armor rating, meaning while a Grenadier might have high armor rating to start with, getting beat on will really start reducing his ability to survive.
The Hulk Strikes Back!

Is this guy blocking your way to the Engineering Deck? Are you angry I nerfed grenade damage? Fear not, with the aforementioned AI group mechanics and armor stat changes, it's more a fight of attrition rather than a straight up slugging match.
For fun and profit, I also added new items (scopes to increase/decrease weapon range and armor kits to increase armor rating), a new weapon damage type (acid that burns through target armor), and a rare one-use weapon, the Lasershot. With 30 base, unmitigated damage and 4 range, it can lance through multiple enemies and even walls. Use with caution - friendly fire isn't!
[h1]Another Let's Play? (Plus an untimely crash?!)[/h1]
From Gaming Faster Than Light:
Have fun and happy robot hunting!
The full changelog fo v0.7.6a follows:
-------------------------------------------------
New Features
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Bug Fixes
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Notes
-------------------------------------------------
This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.7.6a for Mac OS X.
This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.7.6a for Windows.
This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.5a for Mac OS X.
This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.5a for Windows.
This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.4.5a for Mac OS X.
This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.4.5a for Windows.
Latest tweets from @worthless_bums
Loud arguing about zombie apocalypse preparations near me.
5hours 46mins ago
Drive to a room to read call stacks all day. Drive home to read more call stacks.
6hours 39mins ago
@PeterSkerritt I like killer robots :P *cough*
6hours 42mins ago
@TGoCoGames @St1ka Not dying per se but people seem less enthusiastic overall.
6hours 42mins ago
@ElizSimins My last apartment had no A/C. It was hellish during the summer. I hope your unit gets there soon!
6hours 43mins ago
Screw you, KERNELBASE!WaitForSingleObjectEx! WE'LL FINISH THIS LATER.
14hours 55mins ago
@Jennimason0990 No can do, stopped at around Apocalypse xD
14hours 56mins ago
@Lazer So Captain America + Tony Stark = ?
14hours 56mins ago
Today was an unhappy today. Maybe tomorrow will be better :|
16hours 52mins ago
Eyes are bleeding from debug output. BLEEDING.
19hours 11mins ago
Hello there!
I have 3 issues with your wonderful game:
1- crashing: as of v0.7.6a the crashing became more frequent, which is annoying.
2- lack of props: the environment is good looking but lacking some aspects: mauled bodies, bullet holes,blood? you know, signs that say that the ship was overrun ?
3- equipment art: every thing looks like the other, weapon A looks like weapon B.
other than those trivial things, this game is probably one of my fav. at the moment and the best part is that its free!. So thank you for your great work.
Hey, ofk, thanks for the feedback! I'm aware of the crashing reports and am working on it. There's a forum thread here: Worthlessbums.com and a boring video of me auto-stress testing here: Youtube.com
The art has stalled a bit since my artist dropped from the project a few weeks back. I'm working that angle as well - I agree the environment is sparse atm.
Well i can tell you when and where the crash happens for me:
command deck 2 , i clear a small room filled with brutes and small looking robots with great amount of health. I then continue exploring and BAM! crash, every time. hope that helped.
And so sorry about hearing that your artist left, i know how is it like to have someone leave you in the middle of a project. :\
I would also to make a suggestion,since its a rouge like with pre-created levels, can another type of room be added? i would very much like to have shoot outs in "large" halls instead of the repetitive small rooms(knowing that its strategically better to fight in small rooms rather in large rooms).
And again thank you for your work.
v0.7.1a ran way too hot for my laptop, even when just in the menu or setup screen, and using the lowest resolution.
v0.7.4a runs cool now, even on higher resolutions. Great improvement!
Game does seem to crash fairly often.
Typically the crashes don't display an error message, although one time there was a Torque memory error -- it couldn't allocate memory (perhaps a memory leak?).
Minor bug with the Napalm ability of the Grenadier. It used up the 2 AP correctly, but didn't update the display of his remaining AP (the blue number).
Sometimes the message panel in the lower-left corner seems to be clipped by the bottom border of the window.
All in all, the game holds promise. Will check back later.
Good to hear things are running better on your end now ^_^
I've been getting more crash reports for the new build - still tracking down the reason. Will look into the other issues, thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback! :)
I really like what you're doing here. Not only is it turn-based (a genre that has sadly lost most of it's audience) but also has a this nice hand-made look.
It actually reminds me of one of the first games a friend and I developed almost 15 years ago which was based on the space crusade board game. We drew all of the graphics pixel-by-pixel using MS paint ^^
Just tried the demo and I have a stupid question: Why my marine suddenly get killed while trying to move to certain tile? Is there a landmine or such?
There are traps on the floors symbolized by red skulls. I've been getting reports than sometimes the traps are invisible. I'm looking into the issue.
Looks pretty cool ! :) tracking ! ;)
Thanks! Doing my best :)