FAQ (Last updated 24 September 2014)

[apsyse]

What is Steam Marines?

Steam Marines is a squad-based roguelike set on a steampunk spaceship. Bad things happened, there are enemies and guns - you know how scifi plots work.

You control a squad of marines. You try to escape via the elevator on each procedurally generated deck. The game may seem cute and bouncy. Do not let that fool you. Enemies will murder your face.

Steam Marines entered Steam Early Access on 4 September 2013. It fully released on Steam on 24 September 2014.

Is this game a clone of... ?

No. Steam Marines is not a clone of any game I am aware of. It certainly takes ideas from existing games but it melds them into its own flavor. For real if you find another developer that claims I cloned his/her game put us in touch :)

Linux? iOS? Android?

As of 17 June 2014, v0.8.8a of Steam Marines has a native Linux port. No mobile version in the works at this point.

Old Answer:
The engine Steam Marines is built in is for PC/Mac. That said Linux and iOS are not completely out of the question, although Android will most likely not happen. Porting to non-PC/Mac platforms is, however, currently not a priority.

If you only use Linux Steam Marines can be run via Wine (I tested on Ubuntu) but I cannot in good faith suggest you buy it only for Linux. I will iterate - I am not promising any non-PC/Mac builds at this point.

Gamepad/joystick support?

Steam Marines does allow (almost) full key rebinding support. Unfortunately there are some functions (like menu navigation) that are currently not usable without a mouse. I'll be looking into other control schemes if people show interest.

Is this game impenetrable?

Steam Marines does not hold your hand. There are popups and tooltips to explain how the world operates, but it will not come out and say "You should do this!" or allow you to bully your way through (except on Easy). There is a tutorial, and it explains the very basics of using your squad to interact with the world and simple weapons fire.

I want your game but I hate you and don't want to give you money!

>:(

Well, I do run key contests from time to time. You can check contest status here:
http://www.steammarines.com/contests.html

I CAN'T GET ENOUGH STEAM MARINES.

Well there's some merchandise you can get over at Red Bubble![www.redbubble.com] ^_^

[Jack Dandy]

Can you set your squad to follow one guy as he moves across the ship?

[apsyse]

Ah, crap. I was hoping no one would talk about that xD

There -was- a follow mode that did just that, but I disabled it for a few reasons. The main reason is that it was really imbalanced in terms of how fast you could move your entire squad across the map.

When you have control of a marine and enter follow mode you expect to deduct 1 AP from each marine per movement step. The problem with this is it can be unexpectedly jarring to suddenly halt and not be able to move because a marine with less AP than your current marine ran out of AP.

There was also a pretty big (streamline control) issue where in certain formations which marine moved first or if they could swap positions was really ambiguous. Never fully sorted that issue.

There were also a bunch of other issues (not related - easily fixed) with auto-firing during follow mode. It used to be that all marines got a free shot off per follow mode step, then I disabled Grenadier class auto-fire because of friendly fire, there were ammo/reload problems, et cetera.

Collapsing all marines onto one tile in a sort of "travel" mode brings up a whole lot of other not-so-easily-solved issues for a tactical game like Steam Marines.

[Jack Dandy]

MMm, I see. Oh well! Thanks. The maps are pretty small from what I saw, so I guess it shouldn't be much of a problem moving the entire team about

[apsyse]

Map size/level generation were definitely taken into account when removing follow mode :)

Fun fact - Steam Marines levels used to be 64x64 tiles!

[Mr. Stimpson]

Originally posted by apsyse:

it will not come out and say "You should do this!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDZqpsz60U

[Alregard]

What does the hulk suit do? When I have it, I get 10 more life, can take some bullets cause some mysterious red numbers stop me from losing life, make 6 meleedamage... also have a flamer-only-attack with 2 range, using all aps! But, when Im in guardmode, he uses another weapon???
As a Newbie, I would like detailed informations about items like this Hulksuit. Please help =)

[apsyse]

A lot of the fun is finding stuff out! :P I'll give you a few details:

Hulk Suits boost health and armor. The "Mysterious Red Numbers" are just the damage you're taking - early after wearing the Hulk Suit it'll probably be a bunch of 0s. That's because armor acts as a flat reduction, but getting hit also reduces armor by 1. So eventually it will wear out and you'll take actual damage.

Hulk Suit flamethrowers are 2 range attacks that hit both tiles but costs all AP. Flamethrower always does flat damage and never misses.

Have fun!

[Alregard]

Thanks a lot! Then why does he use another weapon in gaordmode? A bug?

[K. the Land-Surveyor]

Is there a chance you can give us an idea of what other things you're planning on implementing? The game feels amazingly complete for being in alpha, so besides just having more stuff in-game, I'm wondering if you have any more specific plans. Like a new class!

[apsyse]

Yep, working on a roadmap so people have a better idea of what's coming :)

[sgtpieman]

So follow mode doesn't actually do anything anymore? I was wondering why I couldn't get that to work.

Is there a way to view weapon range without having to have an enemy targeted? Like, if I want to be able to see how far my gun will shoot without having to actually fire it and waste ammo or find an enemy, can I do that?

[apsyse]

Yep, just mouse over any unit and you'll see a tile overlay for where that unit will attack/shoot. for marines specifically it'll also show weapon range in the popup window.

[Dynamicfall]

Picked it up awhile ago through your website! definitely a learning curve but I am excited to get into it more! That would be cool if local co-op existed. But I understand the extra work that causes

[Lomico]

Just picked it up today, and I've enjoyed the bit I've played so far. Definately a learning curve as others have said, but it has enough of a tutorial to make it not impossible, and many things work themselves out pretty quick.
So I'd like to encourage you, as you've made a great game, and I look forward to the updates and development of this moving forward

[ResoundingSuccess]

Co-op over LAN or even better - over Internet, would be amazing.