Steampunk in Feudal Japan: Introducing Steel Dragons!

Shoguns from across the realm have called for their greatest samurai to reconquer a fallen empire using airships, steam, and steel.

Darrell Hardy and Tim Mensch

3 minute read

Blake Henriksen's Riflewoman art for *Steel Dragons*
Blake Henriksen's Riflewoman art for Steel Dragons

The Game

Steel Dragons is a cooperative adventure digital board game in which one to four players take on the roles of heroes in a mythical land of steampunk samurai. To protect their homeland and secure riches for themselves, the players explore the broken lands, fight dangerous creatures, and work together to defeat the challenges the game throws at them.

The World

Steel Dragons is set in the steampunk feudal Japanese world of Shikaku, where airships traverse the haunted ruins of an ancient empire, mechanics grease the gears of the mighty machines, and mysterious shapers bend steel with the power of their minds. It’s a realm of samurai, ninja, and all the legendary aspects of feudal Japan, but in a steam-driven world far different from our own.

A Digital Tabletop Game

Steel Dragons is a Digital Tabletop Game. This means that while it’s played like a tabletop board game, there are no boards to set up, cards to shuffle, or dice to lose. In fact, there are no physical components at all!

For a physical game with this much depth, you could expect to have to sort and maintain multiple card decks, character stats, and record sheets. But in Steel Dragons, the computer (in the form of your tablet or laptop) takes care of it all. You don’t have to spend time on setup, lose time on bookkeeping, or worry about cleaning up and sorting all the countless cardboard bits when the game is over.

Blake Henriksen's Samurai art for *Steel Dragons*
Blake Henriksen's Samurai art for Steel Dragons

Linked Screens

Steel Dragons introduces a new technology for playing Digital Tabletop Games. Rather than use the typical and tedious “pass and play” techniques of other games, it empowers players to link their own wireless devices (smartphones, tablets, or laptops) to the game and use them to control their heroes. This new technology allows you to experience true hidden information and simultaneous turns—something you can’t do with “pass and play.”

A Never-ending Adventure

The game is designed around cooperative, modular scenarios. As a digital game, it can automatically modify each scenario based on the number of players, how many times you’ve played it, and other factors. Since a portion of each scenario is dynamically generated, each time you play it, you’re virtually guaranteed a unique experience. And once you’ve conquered one scenario, there are plenty more left to challenge you.

Keep in Touch!

If you’re anything close to as excited as we are about the potential of Steel Dragons, be sure to sign up for our mailing list. We promise not to give away or sell your email address to anyone, and we’ll typically mail announcements at most once a month (unless something exciting is happening!).

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, and thank you very much for reading!

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