The Stars are Right as ‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’ Launches!

After a year of intensive development, the small indie team of Red Wasp Design have announced that their anticipated title, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land has launched on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The game is a turn-based strategy RPG inspired by the works of cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and developed in co-operation with Chaosium, the publishers of the cult horror role playing game, Call of Cthulhu.

The game is now out on iTunes and is a universal iOS app so the same game works for iPhone and iPod Touch both SD & HD and for iPad, and carries graphics optimised for each of those platforms. It is priced $4.99, £2.99 & €3.99 for the full universal app. The game’s designer, Tomas Rawlings said, “We’ve put a vast amount of our time, energy and ideas into this game over the last year. It’s been a long journey for us because we want to get it right. We’re not a huge studio, but I hope that fellow gamers will appreciate what we’ve achieved with The Wasted Land.”

The game features nine 3D levels set in the trenches of World War One. The player controls a team of up to six investigators charged with uncovering a deadly inhuman conspiracy underlying the clash of empires of the Great War. Barbed wire, mustard gas and machines guns will prove to be the least dangerous thing that the investigators will encounter as they venture out into no-man’s land to solve the mystery of the Wasted Land. As the game progresses, the player can build up the skills, weapons and equipment of the team to suit their playing style. As well as the physical danger, the investigators must guard their sanity against the myriad horrors that threaten to destroy it.

To stay in touch with the developers and get updates on the game, help and strategy guides and more you may want to connect to Red Wasp Design on Facebook, Twitter (@redwaspdesign) and on their site at redwaspdesign.com

And here are some screen shots:

Well, believe me, there will be a review!

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Meat Cthulhu – Epic Meal Time
• Thoughts on the FIFA World Cup
• Steampunk and Cthulhu – another Example
• A Shop in the Æther
• The Skeptic Steampunk

Related items

• Crossovers
• Mythos Hymn
• When Cthulhu met The Highlander
• Happy Halloween everybody and Iä!
• Meat Cthulhu – Epic Meal Time

Halloween is, according to the holy and wholesome writ of the Great Prophet Howard, one of the most important festivals of the Cult of Cthulhu.

I also want to point out, again, the Cult has changed and Cthulhu himself is most likely far more benign than, say, some fairly popular deity whose name, according to his own statement, is “Jealous”.

The latest evidence actually indicates Cthulhu is here to save the world! And I am doing a little trope-whoring myself here:

Everything sounds more evil in German, you know!

I hope you enjoyed this mindless piece of entertainment from beyond the gulfs of space and time. Now for the aforementioned Halloween Design I stole:

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• More Steampunk Interior Design
• The Skeptic Steampunk
• New Steampunk Home
• A Zeppelin made of Words
• A Brief Introduction to Steampunk

Related items

• Lovecraftian Numerology
• The Kawaii-Drift of Cthulhu
• TGIF and Fun on Friday
• An Unnameable Thing in my Basement – Cthulhu Sketch!
• Crossovers

Now is this a military minded steampunk culture or what? Well, I have to see whether or not my little MacBook is up to the challenge and I can make the time to play…

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Zeppelin Artwork
• Classic Belgian Comics – A Pinch of Dieselpunk
• First Commercial Spaceport
• More Steampunk Interior Design
• Steampunk Visuals – Various Formats

Related items

• Steampunk Visuals – Various Formats
• Review: Riese: Battle for Eleysia
• More Art from Iron Grip: Marauders
• Steampunk for your lunchbreak
• Steampunk Orc

Well, I asked for information about Steampunk and Furries, in case someone could prove me wrong on my previous assertion that there is not too much overlap and guess what happened?

The esteemed Mr. Arthur S. Rowan of Vintage Future passed some information on.

All I can say is: Kiitos herra Rowan!

He specifically mentioned a by now rather old, i.e. vintage, game, released for the first PlayStation. The game in question is

Tail Concerto

Yes, a game combining anthropomorphic characters with Victorian sci-fi technology has been out there for quite some time, as you can guess from the platform it was released for. You can also judge this from the visual content I present here (and the first video was included in Mr. Rowans response):

This is the game trailer:

And this is the first part of the Let’s Play on Youtube:

Tail Concerto was released in 1998. I used to play a lot on the original PlayStation. I drove to friends in my own car when the early adopters among them bought one. Yes, I am an old geek.

Granted, there are also more than a few crossover artworks on Deviant Art (the one I featured above is by hellodingo, I should not let her go unmentioned, that would be grossly unfair), but since you find artwork for everything there, I thought I needed a second source.

Another facet added to the subculture. More precisely, another facet I am now aware of. I wonder what other things await discovery out there, in the furthest reaches of the ætherweb. And I am not talking about Cthulhu Steampunk stuff, I am well aware and happy about its existance, I am thinking about yet another application of the ætherweb’s most famous axiom… No! I shall not go hunting for confirmation, I refuse!

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Steampunk Gear for daily use
• Exquisite Art
• Hej, Polsko Steampunks
• I want THAT job
• More Steampunk Interior Design

Related items

• Iron Grip: Marauders, play it now!
• Even more Games Steampunks can enjoy
• Iron Grip: Marauders (Beta) Review
• Hej, Polsko Steampunks
• Abe Lincoln with Assault Rifle on Grizzly

Well, recently I came across the marvelous artwork of SharpWriter on DeviantArt and  he has some very impressive visions of really hardcore badass Presidents of the United States:

Badass Abe Lincoln

And here are some more:

George Washington the Zombie Slayer:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt in full battle armor:

And here is one I actually object to, since Bigfoot is an endangered species (or how else would you explain the scarcity of sightings), I see no reason of cutting one down with an automatic weapon (yes, I am aware of the story how Teddy Roosevelt got his nickname, in case you wonder):

And to finish this entry, here is some Warhammer 40,000 related art by SahrpWriter, Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves and namesake to one of the most awesome tanks ever envisioned:

And before I forget, SharpWritere’s Art is also available for sale, at very reasonable prices. Check it out.

Hmm… This entry is actually longer than I thought…

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Sexy Steampunk Photoshoot
• Possibly rated R
• Steampunk Dinosaurs
• Dieselpunk Superheroes
• Prof. Minuskel’s Timetravel Panopticum: Recap 2 – Nakari

Related items

• Exquisite Art
• Steampunk Dinosaurs
• Excellent Group Photograph
• Steampunk Visuals – Various Formats
• Fun Friday – Furry Edition

In my local RPG shop, I once flicked through the rulebook and an adventure and found the names of the German characters rather amusing. The people at Games Designers Workshop could have at least looked up some German family names in the New York City phone directory… Instead, they came up with rather ludicrous names, but this gave the first edition quite some charm.

Well, now that I am heavily into Steampunk (you may have guessed…) I am  the proud owner of an original first edition rulebook of Space 1889 and I am also onsidering getting the new and improved German edition. As far as I remember, my friend Matthias over at Steampunk Welten was involved with this one.

Since its re-release earlier this year (in case you are unaware: Games Designers Workshop went bust in the mid 1990′s), Space 1889 has experienced quite a rennaissance and the community on the ætherweb is rather active, and some new fiction has come from the Space 1889 universe.

And this brings me to the topic behind the headline:
In a few weeks the first e-books of the Space 1889 series Space: 1889 & Beyond will be released at an e-book store near you. Frank Chadwick, the mastermind behind Space 1889, is involved in the project, it will be great.

To get a taste of it, Louis Shosty, who is one of the contributers forwarded the following excerpt of the first part of the series for your reading pleasure:

“JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF LUNA”

By Andy Frankham-Allen

Prologue

1.

It was impossible! Aether flyers were not, by definition, designed for a crew of one, a fact that Annabelle Somerset felt with ever increasing dismay as she raced from the control to the navigation station. Just getting the Annabelle (yes, God bless her uncle, he had named the flyer after her) out of the gorge had been hard work. Starting up the boiler single-handed, then rushing the length of the flyer to the control room to check the instruments to make sure the water was creating enough steam, then back to the engine room at the rear of the flyer to set out the rocket engines her uncle had designed especially to combat the awkward gravity of Luna.

She cursed Tereshkov once more, and squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment.

I have to do this, she continued to tell herself. She had survived much worse. Annabelle almost laughed at that. Living for two years amongst Geronimo’s band of Chiricahua Apaches had tested her when she had been a mere slip of a girl. She had survived that, and she was certain she would survive this. That she had no choice was beyond question; there was no other left who could get the message to Earth. Uncle Cyrus’ life was in the balance and she could not allow herself even a moment of weakness in her endeavour. She had let her parents down, and she refused to let history repeat itself with her uncle.

She was not a little girl anymore, and the Russians be damned!

Instruments were laid out before her on the navigation station; some of standard design like the orrery, a mechanical analogue of the Solar System, and an astrolabe which allowed precise measurements of the planets positions; others were of her uncle’s making, and these she did not even know the names of. They were recent creations of his, and her decision to join the expedition had transpired late in the day, ill affording her the time to study these new inventions. Annabelle was no expert at reading the standard instruments, but she understood enough from having watched Blakely at the station to ascertain the current position of the Annabelle. The flyer was barely a kilometre from attaining a low lunar orbit.

She scrambled across to the control station once more, almost colliding with the bulkhead as the flyer shook around her. The damage sustained to the aether propeller by the Russians was too much. When she had first set her eyes on the propeller she had been certain she would never be able to navigate the flyer, despite the relatively unscathed nature of the aether propeller governor. She was fortunate the Russians did not recognise the governor for what it was, or they most certainly would have found a way to remove it from the Annabelle, and if not the whole apparatus then certainly they would have taken the diamond that served as the aether lens. Without it the governor would have been less than useless.

She gripped the aether wheel, a small ratchet-operated wheel that controlled the aether propeller at the rear of the ship, and turned it slightly. Annabelle looked out of the window and was elated to see the distant shape of the Earth, and before it, barely a speck in the depth of space, Her Majesty’s Orbital Heliograph Station Harbinger.

When she had first happened upon this plan with K’chuk she had hoped to be able to pilot the flyer to Earth; it was a difficult task, one fraught with many dangers, but the odds were not insurmountable. Upon seeing the damage rendered by the Russian okhrana, Annabelle knew she would have to adapt her plan. Obtaining a lunar orbit was the best she could hope for, but it would be enough to put the Annabelle in a position relative to the Harbinger. It was operated by the British Empire, and that served her purposes perfectly, as the help she required was located in England and not her native America.

She turned to the heliograph apparatus and was just about to start tapping in her coded message when her eyes espied a most terrible image through the port window. Annabelle’s finger paused over the key, and her eyes stared wide. Its iron clad surface reflected the light from the Sun, rising from Luna like the Great Beast of Hell.

“No,” Annabelle hissed. “This cannot be the end.”

So, she determined, it would not be. The Russian flyer was closing in, its gun ports no doubt opening as she looked, her mind trying to catch up with the increasing beat of her heart. Uncle Cyrus’ flyer was not a warship; he was an inventor, and his flyer echoed that. It was designed for exploration, not for battle. Any armaments it did have were minimal, and even if Annabelle were able to get to them in time, she doubted greatly their effectiveness against a fully armed Russian ironclad.

Annabelle turned away from the approaching flyer and focussed her attention on the heliograph before her. She began typing out her message, praying that the orbiting station would pick it up and relay the message with haste.

Space: 1889 © & ™ Frank Chadwick 1988,2011

Logo Design © Steve Upham, 2011

‘Journey to the Heart of Luna’ is © Andy Frankham-Allen & Untreed Reads LLC, 2011

Space: 1889 & Beyond is published by Untreed Reads Publishing, and the first series begins late August 2011. You can now buy the season pass, and save 25% directly from;

The Untreed Reads Store

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Art Deco Internet Propaganda
• Reichsflugscheibe and Zeppelin
• New Steampunk Home
• More Steampunk Interior Design
• Mitchell Bomber Dieselpunk II

Related items

• Space 1889 & Beyond: Double Review
• Fun Friday – Furry Edition
• Steampunk Novel Excerpt
• Phoenix Rising – The Official Trailer
• Great Language Learning Challenge – Steampunk Multiculturalism

It is good to see so many skilled and crafty people in the scene.

This is also a wonderful example of the cogs of the Steampunk scene interlocking with another, The Cosplayers and this brings me to today’s video,  a tad bit late but none the less very entertaining:

This is the trailer for a Canadian TV documentary series:

Info to all my eaders who are not that big into Steampunk and fanboydom in general:

This is not one giant subculture in this documentary. Steampunks are not Furries, some Steampunks are also Cosplayers but I guess the overlap with the Furry Community is pretty small.
Hmm… Coming to think of it, I am a Steampunk and a Life Action Roleplayer, some of my friends and especially online friends are Steampunks, LARPer and cosplayer, some have also participated in Zombie marches. But as far as I know none of them owns a furry suit. Correct me if I am wrong here.

So, if I am wrong in my presumption and you happen to be a Steampunk Furry, please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you!

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Sexy Steampunk Photoshoot
• More Steampunk Beauty
• Post-Apocalypse little girl
• Steampunk Gear for daily use
• Zeppelin Artwork

Related items

• Abe Lincoln with Assault Rifle on Grizzly
• Exquisite Art
• Steampunk Dinosaurs
• Sexy Steampunk Photoshoot
• Steampunk is Sexy

Now for two Steampunk related things that have almost been fermenting in my æthermail in-box for quite some time now and since both feature visuals, I thought I combine them.

The first one is about Leviathans – Monsters in the Sky a game I featured here before. there is some new artwork out, concerning two types of Leviathans, the French Grenouille-class Destroyer (top row in the gallery below) and the Leviathan-class British Battleship, yes, the name-sake of the game (bottom row):

And…

The iconic Steampunk/Dieselpunk themed game Bioshock is getting its third family member in 2012, Bioshock Infinite, here’s the trailer in case you haven’t seen it already:



So, even if I do not have the time for a decent update, I can still provide some nice steampunk visual art. Yes, I think computer games are visual art, and so are the respective trailers.

Oh and lest I forget, today’s featured article in the Wikipedia is:

(Click, please)

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• New Steampunk Home
• Steampunk Gear for daily use
• More Steampunk Interior Design
• Teslapunk
• Sexy Steampunk Photoshoot

Related items

• Abe Lincoln with Assault Rifle on Grizzly
• Mucha meets BioShock
• Steampunk – History Beyond Imagination
• An inspirational Video about recycling Ideas
• Steampunk Strategy Game by Catalyst Game Labs

Quite fittingly, this high-powered, action packed gem has found its way to Steam and is available for download there. And what will be of interest for my esteemed readers:

I am in posession of three download codes  for this game and I am raffling them off!

So, if your fingers are itching and you would like to have this game on your PC, then leave a comment here or follow my blog on Facebook:

Participation is open until July 10th, the lucky winners will receive an email, as per usual.
Oh yes, and to whet your appetite, here’s the trailer:

Good luck to everybody!

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Steampunk Strategy Game by Catalyst Game Labs
• Steampunk Visuals – Various Formats
• Geek Overkill: Zelda meets Tesla
• Steampunk your home
• Iron Grip: Marauders, play it now!

Related items

• Fun Friday – Furry Edition
• Geek Overkill: Zelda meets Tesla
• Clockwork Steampunk Pacman
• Iron Grip: Marauders, play it now!
• Even more Games Steampunks can enjoy

it has been a while since I stated this but today I exclaim: TGIF!
And since we all need to have a laugh once in a while I thought I share this little geeky gem with you:

Roll a D6 from Connor Anderson on Vimeo.

Yes, some role players out there have far too much time on their hands… Good thing, too. Otherwise we would not be able to enjoy videos such as this one.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

• Creative Uses for Airships
• More Steampunk Beauty
• Random Ætherweb Tomfoolery
• Tom Slatter – Beast of the Air
• Sneak Peek: The Art of Steampunk

Related items

• Happy Halloween everybody and Iä!
• Random Ætherweb Tomfoolery
• Tom Slatter – Beast of the Air
• Fun Friday – Furry Edition
• Abe Lincoln with Assault Rifle on Grizzly