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Steam Marines is a Squad-Based Tactical Roguelike being developed by Worthless Bums. It is currently for sale on the Humble Widget and Desura 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!

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Hi, everyone!

The big stuff this build includes the data.mod and dialogue.mod files that exposes a lot of in-game data to be modded. Game too hard? Make it easier - your way. Too easy? Be masochistic like me and make enemies far more punishing, or marines far weaker.

Pew Pew!


Steam Marines - Gunship Pew Pew

Steam Marines - Gunship Beam Attack

The Armory Deck gets a boss - and he's an asshole. Marines beware! As with every other boss in the game, it does not have immunities or subvert your hard earned tactical knowledge. But it does have a trick or two up its sleeve. Learn fast or die fast.

What is that? Is that a... thing?

One of the complaints I get is that some people find it hard to pick out units - readability can be an issue with such a sprite-filled screen. I endeavored to fix this with some tileset changes. My process:

Steam Marines - Armory Deck testing

Steam Marines - Armory Deck testing

Steam Marines - Armory Deck testing

There was a lot of back and forth regarding hue, brightness/contrast, saturation, et cetera. But the gist is that a lighter background (floor tiles essentially) helps pick out units due to dark outlines. Bouncing AND contrast!

Steam Marines - Armory Deck Testing

Online Scores?

I added an opt-in feature that sends non-identifiable game play data to a server. This will help me better balance and design Steam Marines. It also has a very prototype-y online high score (disabled by default) - maybe an online leaderboard is in the cards? We'll see!

Steam Marines - Online Leaderboard

Thanks for reading, and happy robot hunting!
Mister Bums

The full changelog follows:

v0.8.6a

-------------------------------------------------
New/Changed Features
-------------------------------------------------

  • Added a server data toggle on the bottom left of the main menu. By default Steam Marines will never "phone home." If you wish, you can click to toggle the server data flag on/off. When it is on, Steam Marines will send data on game over to a Steam Marines server for analytics purposes. No personally identifiable information is stored (IP, computer name, et cetera), just play statistics like number of walls smashed, squad member deaths, et cetera. To be very clear this is an Opt-In, not an Opt-Out. Every time Steam Marines starts up the flag is toggled OFF and no data will be sent anywhere.
  • Exposed a lot of game data to data.mod and dialogue.mod files. These files can be edited/saved prior to game launch to take effect. The file is invalidated via the version number on the first line of the file. Make backups so Steam Marine updates don't wipe out your modding efforts!
  • Added profiling tool. Open the console and type "startProfiler();" and hit enter to start the profiler. Typing "stopProfiler();" and hitting enter will stop the profiler and dump to the file "_profile.txt" located in the Steam Marines directory. The text file shouldn't take up more than a few kilobytes of space on disk.
  • Gunship implemented as the Armory Deck boss. Beware!
  • Re-implemented squad panel. Shifted UI elements to accomodate.
  • Added keyboard controls to navigate, use, and drop items in inventory.
  • Added Xbox controller trigger maps for navigating inventory - Windows only at the moment. Cannot rebind triggers (yet?)
  • Added unit hit slow motion effect.
  • Hit units now shrink and grow instead of sliding along the x-axis.
  • Added slowdown and screen shake for unit knock back.
  • Mouse cursor now disappears after a few seconds of inactivity. Default time to wait is 3000 milliseconds; this is moddable in the data.mod file.
  • Added indicator animation for all visible units standing on lifted tiles.
  • Increased treasure chest spawn chance.
  • Cut trap spawn chance by about half.
  • Grenade items now have a 25% chance to destroy doors.
  • Added new Engineer laser weapon sound effect.
  • Added new set plastic explosive on door sound effect.

-------------------------------------------------
Bug Fixes
-------------------------------------------------

  • Fixed "Sweeper" perk from only working for Leader class marines.
  • Fixed Hulk Suit flamethrower not firing if the marine's main weapon doesn't have enough ammunition.
  • Fixed load level issue interfering with item spawning.
  • Fixed porthole comments not triggering properly.
  • Refactored fog-of-war code - should be faster; possible cause of cursor-over-unit FPS drops?
  • Fixed fog of war memory leak.
  • Fixed infinite auto-grabbing if standing on a treasure chest with full inventory.
  • Crates on the elevator tile can now be properly smashed.
  • Stripped tabs from custom keybinds and replaced them with spaces; should also fix tooltip extent issue.
  • Fixed Firearm UI always showing flashlight on the attachment when loading a saved game.
  • Fixed render order issue between Alien Merchant and wall paintings.
  • When recruiting survivors the game will attempt to place the survivor close to the squad spawn point instead of moving the entire squad (possibly on top of enemies!)
  • Fixed being able to go to the main menu from the recruit survivor screen which breaks the game.
  • Optimized rendering between large/small units.
  • Batched some sprites.
  • Optimized texture loading/unloading.
  • Fixed units being able to be knocked back onto porthole tiles.
  • Squad AP gets refilled on New Game Plus.
  • Fixed survivor screen not properly showing Engineer class name in description.
  • Fixed boss units being killed by Lasershots not dropping loot or stopping boss music.
  • Fixed marines in Hulk Suits from using non-Hulk Suit reload weapon animations when using Ammo Crates.
  • Fixed marines sometimes staying too large when their Hulk Suits are destroyed.
  • Sorted various render order issues.
  • Fixed "Close Combat" perk error when firing at out of range enemy units.
  • Fixed scrolling event log from interfering with mouse events.
  • Fixed Engineer class bullet impact sound effects not playing when striking walls.
  • Properly resets to correct zoom level after changing game resolution.
  • Fixed enemy non-idle animations being written to and from save file.
  • Wall pumps now properly persist through save/load file.
  • Fixed Support class talent "Bulwark" not showing on lifted tiles.

-------------------------------------------------
Notes
-------------------------------------------------

  • Changed mouse/cursor updates. Should be less CPU bottleneck for lower end computers when moving marines.
  • Large performance gain on level generation and saving/loading.
  • Level sprites used cut by... a lot.
  • Optimized fog of war a tiny bit more.
  • Shifted "saving..." message to the upper right corner of the screen for all resolutions.
  • Updated Engineer Firearm UI schematic.
Steam Marines v0.8.5a is out!

Steam Marines v0.8.5a is out!

News 5 comments

Steam Marines v0.8.5a is out with the new Engineer class, new Medical Deck boss, new Perk System, and more!

Steam Marines v0.8.4a - on the road to beta!

Steam Marines v0.8.4a - on the road to beta!

News 4 comments

Steam Marines v0.8.4a is out with a random event/weather system, new game options, balance tweaks, fire/reload/projectile animations, and more!

Steam Marines v0.8.3a is here with a tutorial, unit tooltips, and more!

Steam Marines v0.8.3a is here with a tutorial, unit tooltips, and more!

News 10 comments

Steam Marines v0.8.3a is here with a tutorial, unit tooltips, and more! Also getting ready for Steam launch!

Steam Marines has been Greenlit!

Steam Marines has been Greenlit!

News 6 comments

Steam Marines has been Greenlit on Steam. New build forthcoming and everyone who bought Steam Marines will receive a Steam key.

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Steam Marines v0.8.0a (Mac)

Steam Marines v0.8.0a (Mac)

Demo

This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.8.0a for Mac OS X.

Steam Marines v0.8.0a (Win)

Steam Marines v0.8.0a (Win)

Demo

This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.8.0a for Windows.

Steam Marines v0.7.9a (Mac)

Steam Marines v0.7.9a (Mac)

Demo

This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.9a for Mac OS X.

Steam Marines v0.7.9a (Win)

Steam Marines v0.7.9a (Win)

Demo 2 comments

This is the Steam Marines alpha build v0.7.9a for Windows.

Steam Marines v0.7.8a (Mac)

Steam Marines v0.7.8a (Mac)

Demo

This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.7.8a for Mac OS X.

Steam Marines v0.7.8a (Win)

Steam Marines v0.7.8a (Win)

Demo

This is the alpha build of Steam Marines v0.7.8a for Windows.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 148)
martyra2j
martyra2j - - 168 comments

I did a Let's Play on this game! Come check it out if ya like!
Big thanks to the developer for this great game!
Hope you enjoy.

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theminutemonth
theminutemonth - - 1 comments

i really like the game, i bought it and i really like it alot, but one problem, the game seems to be lagging really bad, its almost unplayable. ive tryed everything i can think of and i was hoping maybe you have a suggestion that could help me fix the problem. ive tryed changing my power options on my computer, all the way up to high performance, and it still has no effect. changing settings in game doesnt work either. please help.

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Worthless_Bums Creator
Worthless_Bums - - 85 comments

Send me your console.log file (located in the Steam Marines directory) to yjseow@worthlessbums.com and I can take a closer look!

Reply Good karma+1 vote
alfredo1
alfredo1 - - 14 comments

I bought the game yesterday and I haven't received the steam key yet.
I have sent an email hoping that Desura's team will fix this...

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Worthless_Bums Creator
Worthless_Bums - - 85 comments

When you go to Indiedb.com and click on "Keys" next to Steam Marines there's nothing?

Reply Good karma+5 votes
alfredo1
alfredo1 - - 14 comments

Damn man... now I feel so stupid :D!
Thanks, you are the best :*!

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Worthless_Bums Creator
Worthless_Bums - - 85 comments

No problem :)

Reply Good karma+2 votes
Shardz
Shardz - - 36 comments

Buyer's remorse in one second upon learning that the current version is STILL STUCK at 8.2a after over a month. And this with a sale on the Desura landing page? Are you kidding me?!?!

You might as well just sell it on Steam and forget the other distro methods if this is how it's going to be with future updates. This happened with several games on Desura who are more Steam-friendly than anything and I'm getting tired of having my patches held hostage by politics. If I was a Steam user, I wouldn't be here purchasing through Desura. Why pamper them and make everyone else wait for months? Dredmor was infamous for update denial and now this looks like the same type of burnt offerings once again. This is unacceptable, sorry. I want a refund.

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Shardz
Shardz - - 36 comments

Update Crusade Progress: Message left on the Worthless Bums forums, two comments left here on Desura, an email fired off to Desura in the form of a complaint, and I also took the liberty of sending a personal email to the dev via blog address.

I'm not expecting miracles here, but when they are pitching an alpha game that has a timestamp of September 4, 2013 on the Desura servers...and then SHOWCASE the game on the landing page for a special sale like it's brand new, I seriously doubt the integrity of this place.

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Worthless_Bums Creator
Worthless_Bums - - 85 comments

Hi, Shardz, thanks for taking the time to kick the bushes. I'm working on straightening this all out right now.

Reply Good karma+3 votes
Henley
Henley - - 1,973 comments

The MCF version is up to date, I was not aware there was an issue like this. Sorting it out now.

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