History VideoGame / AStudyInSteampunk

** Likewise, though the player character starts the game as a member of Woodward's "irregulars" black-ops force in service of the Mercian empire, he can later defect to the revolutionaries from Free Mercia fighting against it and directly opposed by Woodward's people. Alternatively, he can join the Sun Temple, which is aligned with the moderate wing of Free Mercia, though it is up to the player whether he renounces his Rationalist viewpoints entirely or reconciles them with sun-worship and healing.

* AuraVision: The Nigel-Trevelyan Glass enables this as applied to light-eaters. It captures and visualizes the irregular electromagnetic waves emitted by light-eaters, which makes them appear [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience shrouded in red]] while the rest of the populace appear [[GoodColorsEvilColors white-gold]].

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They're called light-eaters and drain lifeforce through skin contact instead of sucking blood, enabling unnatural extension of the light-eater's lifespan and healing of their wounds at the cost of others' energy or lives. The ability/condition is hereditary and may surface where it is least expected, and also addictive, making its bearers prone to serial killing and accounting for the fear of light-eating among the general populace. The Vlask Empire's [[Literature/{{Dracula}} entire nobility caste]] is such: the Vlaski boyars are alluded to be night-immortal through draining the lifeforce of their serfs. [[spoiler:Naturally, this being a ChooseYourOwnAdventure game, your protagonist possesses the ability to become one.]]

''A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight'' is an independently produced ChooseYourOwnAdventure game, written by Heather Albano and hosted by Creator/ChoiceOfGames' user submitted label ''Hosted Games''.

* GoodOldWays: The sun-worshippers believe that the use of hands is sacred, and that modern technology interferes with this and so is against their religion. [[spoiler: The player character can make them more flexible by pointing out that bandages and such [[CaptainObvious require the use of hands as well]].]]

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: All the Vlaskesari encountered or mentioned over the course of the game are malevolent to at least some degree. Their home country, Vlask, is depicted as unfailingly brutal, tyrannical and expansionist, serving as an easy enemy for any possible protagonist.

* BigBad: The Vlasekari and their Vlask Empire. [[spoiler:Notably, they're the BigBad regardless of whether in the end you work for the Mercian government, the Free Mercia movement, or the Sun Temple, although for different reasons: the Mercian government hates Vlask for being superstitious, the Free Mercia movement hates the Vlaskesari for dominating their serfs, and the Sun Temple considers the practice of light-eating to be repulsive, as being sun-touched is meant to be a blessing used to heal others.]]

The free demo for the game can be found [[https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/study-in-steampunk/#utm_medium=web&utm_source=ourgames here]].

''A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight'' is an independently produced ChooseYourOwnAdventure game hosted by Creator/ChoiceOfGames and produced by Heather Albano.

''A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight'' is an independently produced ChooseYourOwnAdventure game hosted by ChoiceOfGames and produced by Heather Albano.

* {{Expy}}: Finch ''is'' SherlockHolmes, complete with [[spoiler: FakingTheDead for two years without telling you]]. Woodward is Mycroft and the Professor is Moriarty down to the Loegrian/Irish origins and multi-talented criminal genius. More-broadly, Mercia is a more-advanced portrait of VictorianBritain, while Vlask is a nightmare portrait of Tsarist Russia with a little Transylvania. Alexandra Townsend and the opera singer Madame Adela Albsecu could both be considered counterparts for Irene Adler in different ways, and Colonel Fearnley is a pretty clear analogue to Colonel Moran, complete with big-game hunting. The treatment of sun-worshippers, meanwhile, is a reference to English Catholicism, and Loegria is Ireland, complete with parallels to the suppression of their culture and religion.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Mercia is basically a recreation of VictorianBritain, complete with the British parliament and monarchy systems, but also given a [[StrawVulcan radically rationalist]], [[NayTheist anti-religious]] and [[AntiMagicalFaction anti-magical]] ideology. Loegria is a direct stand-in for Ireland culturally, religiously and politically, to the point where the names could technically be swapped. Vlask is unmistakably meant to portray Russia, using Russian-specific terms and names, but transforms the society into a backwardly feudalistic, retrograde [[TheMagocracy magocracy]] with the {{Muggles}} serving as a source of nourishment for the SupernaturalElite of [[LifeDrinker vampiric]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent light-eaters]] and kept in line by a hideously CorruptChurch. Other countries mentioned are Bretagne, Almania and Goraska, seemingly derived from France, Germany and Romania respectively, but little detail is available; all of them are under Mercian occupation/vassaldom, with Goraska being contested between Mercia and Vlask.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mercia has thrown off the yoke of an abusive theocracy to become an advanced and progress-focused nation, but its rigidly conservative and rationalist society embodies all the nastier aspects of industrialized VictorianBritain. The Resistance does have some good points about workers' rights and the need for reform, but they are also a band of criminals whose terror-tactics sometimes cause collateral damage, [[spoiler: and whose leader is more concerned with freedom for Loegria and revenge on Mercia than his organization's high-minded goals]]. And while the Mercian branch of the Sun Temple might presently embody the sort of simple virtue and compassion that best represents its faith, it is also hide-bound with old traditions and resistant to even positive changes like modern medicine, and it idealizes its past a bit too much for comfort. Only Vlask, with its barbaric, feudal lifestyle and abusive, life-sucking immortal boyars, is [[AlwaysChaoticEvil wholly unsympathetic and evil]].

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: The major difference between Mercia and actual VictorianBritain is that Mercia is a rigidly atheistic society, to the point of discrimination against sun-worshippers. This is a byproduct of overthrowing a horribly abusive theocracy not much better than modern Vlaski's.

* VampireMonarch: The rulers of Vlask, just like all of Vlaskesari nobility, are light-eaters. [[spoiler:The Vlaskesari plot to bring out the sun-touch in the Mercian royal family's crown prince, intending to transform him into one as well, seemingly to prove themselves as NotSoDifferent and paint the Mercians as hypocrites.]]

* SpannerInTheWorks: Professor Callahan's favoured strategy, dubbed by him "sand in the gears" in comparison to a war mech being crippled in desert condition. [[spoiler:[[Irony This is exactly how Callahan's Rising is sabotaged]] and the Vlask invasion prevented in the best endings, with Alexandra Townsend bringing up the "sand in the gears" phrase directly in reference to the actions intended to grind it to a halt.]]

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Free Mercia, a pro-labour underground group, can be perceived as either depending on your protagonist's allegiances and opinions. Notably, its leadership can be convinced to abandon terrorist acts as a way to further their agenda.

** ** The HMS ''Colossus'' luxury cruise airship is clearly inspired by the ''Titanic'', widely celebrated as a great achievement in shipbuilding, but suffering from a disaster on its maiden voyage as well as from a lack of lifeboats sufficient for the passengers and crew to abandon ship. However, the ''Colossus'' is crippled not by an iceberg, but by a LaResistance operative through an act of sabotage, and the ship is saved by the actions of Finch and the player character.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: If you choose, you can play a straight male character, happily married to Grace Chandler, and yet still be very close friends with Garret Finch. [[spoiler: Though the 'heterosexual' part for Finch is debateable.]]

* BunnyEarsLawyer: The "Conventional/Unconventional" stat measures exactly how long your bunny ears are.

* BigBad: The Vlasekari and their Vlaski Empire. [[spoiler:Notably, they're the BigBad regardless of whether in the end you work for the Mercian government, the Free Mercia movement, or the Sun Temple, although for different reasons: the Mercian government hates the Vlaski for being superstitious, the Free Mercia movement hates the Vlaski for dominating their serfs, and the Sun Temple considers the practice of light-eating to be repulsive, as being sun-touched is meant to be a blessing used to heal others.]]

* CorruptChurch: The Vlaski version of the solar faith is presided over by beings that literally drain the life out of their people to keep them in slavery.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: When dealing with the cholera outbreak, [[spoiler: the best option is to refuse to help anyone individually and focus on tracking the epidemiology of the disease and finding the pump. Every minute you waste in saving the life of a sick baby means that more people will die because they're still drinking from a contaminated water source.]] Then again, [[spoiler: not having a good reputation in the community has its own consequences down the line.]]

* {{Expy}}: Finch ''is'' SherlockHolmes, complete with [[spoiler: FakingTheDead for two years without telling you]]. Woodward is Mycroft and the Professor is Moriarty down to the Loegrian/Irish origins and multi-talented criminal genius. More-broadly, Mercia is a more-advanced portrait of VictorianBritain, while Vlaski is a nightmare portrait of Tsarist Russia with a little Transylvania. Alexandra Townsend and the opera singer Madame Adela Albsecu could both be considered counterparts for Irene Adler in different ways, and Colonel Fearnley is a pretty clear analogue to Colonel Moran, complete with big-game hunting. The treatment of sun-worshippers, meanwhile, is a reference to English Catholicism, and Loegria is Ireland, complete with parallels to the suppression of their culture and religion.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mercia has thrown off the yoke of an abusive theocracy to become an advanced and progress-focused nation, but its rigidly conservative and rationalist society embodies all the nastier aspects of industrialized VictorianBritain. The Resistance does have some good points about workers' rights and the need for reform, but they are also a band of criminals whose terror-tactics sometimes cause collateral damage, [[spoiler: and whose leader is more concerned with freedom for Loegria and revenge on Mercia than his organization's high-minded goals]]. And while the Mercian branch of the Sun Temple might presently embody the sort of simple virtue and compassion that best represents its faith, it is also hide-bound with old traditions and resistant to even positive changes like modern medicine, and it idealizes its past a bit too much for comfort. Only Vlaski, with its barbaric, feudal lifestyle and abusive, life-sucking immortal boyars, is [[AlwaysChaoticEvil wholly unsympathetic and evil]].

* LifeDrinker: "Light-eating" is the hideous practice of sucking out another being's life force to fuel one's own. Originally, the old solar priests were only supposed to do so to top off between heals, and only with the consent of their parishioners, and the current Solar Temple in Mercia still does it that way, but the Vlaski Empire is ruled by men and women who do so as their "right" over their serfs... or to torment prisoners of war.
* MaybeEverAfter: [[spoiler:Befriend Alexandra Townsend without actually hooking up with her, get her and Woodward to work together and stop the Rise, and she'll mention that you and she were star-crossed... allies. Which seems to leave things open.]]

* NotInThisForYourRevolution: [[spoiler:Professor Callahan, [[MoleInCharge ''the leader of Free Mercia'']], is only using his organization to get back at Mercia for occupying and oppressing his homeland, Loegria, and secure its freedom by way of allying with Vlask to crush the Mercian empire.]]
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They're called light-eaters and drain lifeforce through skin contact instead of sucking blood, enabling unnatural extension of the light-eater's lifespan and healing of their wounds at the cost of others' energy or lives. The ability/condition is hereditary and may surface where it is least expected, and also addictive, making its bearers prone to serial killing and accounting for the fear of light-eating among the general populace. The Vlaski Empire's [[Literature/{{Dracula}} entire nobility caste]] is such: the Vlaski boyars are alluded to be night-immortal through draining the lifeforce of their serfs. [[spoiler:Naturally, this being a ChooseYourOwnAdventure game, your protagonist possesses the ability to become one.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Woodward, to his credit, almost never lets his conservative prejudices blind him to the possibility that something different from what he expects might be going on if the player supplies evidence. And Taggart, the Father of the local solar church the player can visit and even befriend is an eminently-reasonable man who refuses to let his flock use violence and reacts to police searches with saintly patience. He also considers the practice of light-eating to be repulsive, and freely admits that maybe it was partially a good thing that the Sun Temples' power was broken, as some of them had been violating the central tenets of their faith by light-eating.

The game begins with the player character, an officer in the Medical Corps of the Mercian Imperial Army in its war against the Vlaski Empire. After being seriously injured in a rescue mission on a Vlaski prison camp, you return to the Mercian capital of Kingsford and take up a position under Arthur Woodward, a [[BlatantLies minor official in the Mercian Government]], working alongside part-time newspaper photographer and fellow agent [[GreatDetective Garrett Finch]].

* BanOnMagic: Being "sun-touched" or "sun-blessed" is not illegal per se, and neither is using the power to heal. However, anyone who has or shows such an ability is barred from polite society, which for a doctor means losing your medical license (you can still practice, but only as a "healer" helping the poor and making no money) and being relegated to the slums.

* EnemyMine: The core of the Resistance and the government secret police [[spoiler: join forces to defeat the Professor's plan to give over Mercia into the hands of Vlaski in the third act]].
* {{Expy}}: Finch is SherlockHolmes, complete with [[spoiler: FakingTheDead for two years without telling you]]. Woodward is Mycroft and the Professor is Moriarty. More-broadly, Mercia is a more-advanced portrait of VictorianBritain, while Vlaski is a nightmare portrait of Tsarist Russia with a little Transylvania. Alexandra Townsend and the opera singer Madame Adela Albsecu could both be considered counterparts for Irene Adler in different ways, and Colonel Fearnley is a pretty clear analogue to Colonel Moran, complete with big-game hunting. The treatment of sun-worshippers, meanwhile, is a reference to English Catholicism, and Loegria is Ireland, complete with parallels to the suppression of their culture and religion.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Professor seems rather indifferent to the loss of life or livelihood of average Mercians in his pursuit to topple the Mercian government. [[spoiler: This shows he cares nothing for Mercia and plans to give it over to Vlaski for Loegria's, his own country which is ruled by Mercia, freedom.]]

* GoodOldWays: The sun-worshippers believe that the use of hands is sacred, and that modern technology interferes with this and so is against their religion. [[spoiler: The player character can make them more flexible by pointing out that bandages and such require the use of hands as well.]]
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mercia has thrown off the yoke of an abusive theocracy to become an advanced and progress-focused nation, but its rigidly conservative and rationalist society embodies all the nastier aspects of industrialized VictorianBritain. The Resistance does have some good points about workers' rights and the need for reform, but they are also a band of criminals whose terror-tactics sometimes cause collateral damage, [[spoiler: and whose leader is more concerned with freedom for Loegria and revenge on Mercia than his organization's high-minded goals]]. And while the Mercian branch of the Sun Temple might presently embody the sort of simple virtue and compassion that best represents its faith, it is also hide-bound with old traditions and resistant to even positive changes like modern medicine, and it idealizes its past a bit too much for comfort. Only Vlaski, with its barbaric, feudal view of human rights and abusive, life-sucking immortal boyars, is wholly unsympathetic and evil.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The Vlaski boyars are rich, vaguely Eastern European, nobles who unnaturally extend their lives with the life-force of other creatures.

* SaintlyChurch: The solar chapel the player can visit partway through the game represents everything right about their faith, eschewing violence and taking care of the poor and miserable without taking advantage of them.

* SherlockScan: Finch, naturally. The player character can also learn to do this if they raise their 'perception' stat high enough.

* YouAreWhatYouHate: A Conventional protagonist has the option of standing in rigid denial of their own innate sun-touch.

* CastFromHitPoints: Using their healing powers draws upon a a sun-touched person's LifeEnergy.

* SerialKiller: [[JackTheRipper The Ripper]], naturally. [[spoiler: The player character]] can also become one depending on the choices you choose to make.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: If you choose, you can play a straight male character, happily married to Grace Chandler, and yet still be very close friends with Garret Finch.

A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight is an independently produced ChooseYourOwnAdventure game hosted by ChoiceOfGames and produced by Heather Albano.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Professor seems rather indifferent to the loss of life or livelihood of average Mercians in his pursuit to topple the Mercian government. [[spoiler: This shows he cares nothing of Mercia and will sell it to Vlaski for Loegria's, his own country which is ruled by Mercia, freedom.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mercia has thrown off the yoke of an abusive theocracy to become an advanced and progress-focused nation, but its rigidly conservative and rationalist society embodies all the nastier aspects of industrialized VictorianBritain. The Resistance does have some good points about workers' rights and the need for reform, but they are also a band of criminals whose terror-tactics have occasional collateral damage, [[spoiler: and whose leader is more concerned with freedom for Loegria and revenge on Mercia than his organization's high-minded goals]]. And while the Mercian branch of the Sun Temple might presently embody the sort of simple virtue and compassion that best represents its faith, it is also hide-bound with old traditions and resistant to even positive changes like modern medicine, and it idealizes its past a bit too much for comfort. Only Vlaski, with its barbaric, feudal view of human rights and abusive, life-sucking immortal boyars is wholly unsympathetic and evil.

* MaybeEverAfter: [[spoiler:Befriend Alexandra Townsend without actually hooking up with her, get her and Woodward to work together and stop the Rise, and she'll mention that you and she were star-crossed...allies. Which seems to leave things open.]]

* NobleBigot: [[spoiler:Miss Chandler is an intelligent, brave, good-hearted woman, but being straightforward with her about your sun-touched nature and about having used your powers (if you have) is too much for her to accept. She will immediately break off a relationship if you do -- although to her credit, she promises not to reveal your secret and doesn't.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mercia contains all the nastier aspects of VictorianBritain, and the Resistance does have some good points about workers' rights and the need for reform. On the other hand, the Vlaski nobility live by draining life from the serfs, and the Professor has no qualms about destroying thousands of lives to achieve his goals.

* LiesToChildren: The player can listen in on a lesson given in the solar chapel about a noble traveling healer. When he points out to Taggart that the real history of the solar religion was much more nuanced than that, the Father says that these are very young children who need to learn about the ideals of the solar church before they learn the darker truths.
* LifeDrinker: "Light-eating" is the hideous practice of sucking out another being's life force to fuel one's own. Originally, the old solar priests were only supposed to do so with the consent of their parishioners, and the current Solar Temple in Mercia still does it that way, but the Vlaski Empire is ruled by men and women who do so as their "right" over their serfs... or to torment prisoners of war.

* NobleBigot: [[spoiler:Miss Chandler is an intelligent, brave, good-hearted woman, but being straightforward with her about your sun-touched nature and about having used your powers (if you have) is too much for her to accept--although to her credit, she promises not to reveal your secret.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Woodward, to his credit, never lets his conservative prejudices blind him to the possibility that something different from what he expects might be going on if the player supplies evidence. And Taggart, the Father of the local solar church the player can visit and even befriend is an eminently-reasonable man who refuses to let his flock use violence and reacts to police searches with saintly patience. He also considers the practice of light-eating to be repulsive, and freely admits that maybe it was partially a good thing that the Sun Temples' power was broken, as some of them had been violating the central tenets of their faith by light-eating.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: When dealing with the cholera outbreak, [[spoiler: the best option is to refuse to help anyone individually and focus on tracking the epidemiology of the disease and finding the pump. Every minute you waste in saving the life of a sick baby means that more people will die because they're still drinking from a contaminated water source.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Woodward, to his credit, never lets his conservative prejudices blind him to the possibility that something different from what he expects might be going on if the player supplies evidence. And Taggart, the Father of the local solar church the player can visit and even befriend is an eminently-reasonable man who refuses to let his flock use violence and reacts to police searches with saintly patience.