GearHead Caramel
Joseph Hewitt · 2022 · Mechs, RPG, Strategy, Roguelike, Strategy RPG
PC
Positive94% · 17 📉 Recent reviews down 86%
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About GearHead Caramel
It's been a year since the Typhon Incident, when a biomonster from the Age of Superpowers awoke and rampaged across the Earth. Aegis Overlord, having consolidated power on Luna, begins preparation to extend their domination across the solar system. The L5 Alliance attempts to maintain a fragile peace while their member-states bicker and war among themselves. To make matters worse, the cyberpop band Love Magnet just announced that they're splitting up. I trust that all of you know what this means.
It's time to fire up your giant robot and go do some stomping.
GearHead Caramel is a turn based tactics style scifi mecha Roguelike RPG set in a world recovering from the apocalypse. Take control of an immensely powerful mecha, build a team of unique lancemates, and change the future for better or worse. This is the third game in the GearHead series, though you don't need to have played the previous two to jump right in. Your character can play through a series of adventures set in various times and places in the GearHead universe. Currently there are two adventure modules, with more to follow.
Features include:
It's time to fire up your giant robot and go do some stomping.
GearHead Caramel is a turn based tactics style scifi mecha Roguelike RPG set in a world recovering from the apocalypse. Take control of an immensely powerful mecha, build a team of unique lancemates, and change the future for better or worse. This is the third game in the GearHead series, though you don't need to have played the previous two to jump right in. Your character can play through a series of adventures set in various times and places in the GearHead universe. Currently there are two adventure modules, with more to follow.
Features include:
- Procedural Narrative: The game is different every time you play it. In addition, the game world will react to your decisions. NPCs remember their past interactions with you and will treat you accordingly.
- Both Mecha and Personal Scale Combat: GearHead may be a mecha game, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do on foot. You can explore dungeons, negotiate peace treaties, replace body parts with cybernetics, and even get swallowed whole by gigantic biomonsters.
- Detailed Mecha Build System: Upgrade your mecha with parts from the customization shop or taken as salvage from missions. There are dozens of standard mecha to choose from, ranging from giant sword-wielding robots to city-levelling tanks. You can even design new mecha from scratch, but be warned- you might end up facing your own designs in combat!
- Lifepath Based Character Generation: A GearHead character is more than just a collection of stats. You can allow the game to give you a random life story, or make every decision along the way by yourself. Using the portrait builder you can customize the appearance of your character.
- Party Dynamics: Your adventuring companions have their own abilities and personalities. Their relationship with you will change depending on your choices, their choices, and a variety of other factors. Will your team become a tight knit found family? Or will they take the first opportunity to go through your pockets and leave your body in a ditch?
- PDF Game Manual with Artwork and a History of the GearHead Universe: Get up to date with the Novus Tempus and learn how to be a giant robot pilot. Includes a detailed description of the exploration and combat interfaces, plus an extensive troubleshooting section.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
So, Gearhead is one of those classic hyper specific old school passion projects that scratches an itch that no other game does. But the problem was that, well, it was old school. The balance was questionable, the mechanics unfinished, the UI horrible, the graphics terrible, etc etc- but that was never really what it was about, so it was fine. Caramel is an attempt to bring a more unified feel to the game. To update it for the modern day. However, in doing so, the developer has transitioned from making it a freely available passion project into a product. A very cheap product, but a product nonetheless. And it's a ♥♥♥♥ product. Because the thing is, in an attempt to fix everything wrong with Gearhead 1 and 2, the dev kind of destroyed everything that made the series unique without fixing any of the issues. The graphics still look ugly as sin- in fact they're kind of worse actually. The only benefit to them is at least they're consistently ugly instead of the literally random stylings of the previous games. There's more story, but in doing so the sandboxy feel of the old game is gone. Yet somehow I'm even *more* lost than when I started the first two games, because now everything …11 found this helpful
Super great game for a single Indy developer and at a low, extremely reasonable price. I did hit some frustrating points, but I feel that the rhythm of the missions is very fun/satisfying.2 found this helpful
A fun open-source roguelike with a wealth of choice in gameplay and a lot of complexity and depth, the majority of which is not forced on you if you don't want it. It's presented in a very digestible, scenario-based format rather than being truly open-world; that being said, the scenarios are still capable of being very large and open and you can even create your own. The only thing that I find lacking in this game is cohesion in conversation; dialogue can be very awkward and stilted owing to how it's generated. The generated character art can also be a bit weird.1 found this helpful
goated1 found this helpful
I like this game a lot. The crude 2d pixel graphics grow on you. The procedural worlds, randomized npc's, branching storylines and the quirkly AI dialogue makes new playthroughs feel fresh-adjacent. The ability to customize your character and your mecha is really sexy. I feel like there is a lot of potential here as a storytelling vehicle. This game crashes my system a lot and I lose my progress and the characters I create so it's not all sunshine and rainbows but I don't care because it's all about the journey. It's like reverse End of Evangelion where things start grim and then actually get better and better.
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