The Lamplighters League takes turn-based strategy to the 1930s | preview

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Harebrained Schemes showed off The Lamplighters League and the Tower at the End of the World in a preview during the Game Developers Conference.

Besides having one of the longest names in gaming history, the title is unique in its mashup of turn-based combat and its 1930s pulp adventure set in an alternative universe.

Mitch Gitelman, studio head of Seattle-based Harebrained Schemes, and game director Christopher Rogers showed me the game last week in a hands-off preview. Gitelman is an industry veteran and Harebrained Schemes has worked on titles like the Shadowrun trilogy, Battletech and Crimson Skies. The latter was also set in the 1930s and Gitelman said he loved the timeframe.

I asked if it was inspired by Indiana Jones, but Gitelman said he went back to the original source material in the pulp adventure comics of the era. The idea was to create a rich narrative alongside deep tactical gameplay.

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“People say it’s like Indiana Jones or it’s The Mummy,” Gitelman said. “But we went back to the pulp fiction, the primary source materials.”

In the game, you lead a group of heroic scholars in the Lamplighters League whose aim is to stop a tyrannical outrun a sinister global cult called the Banish Court. The cult’s aim is world domination.

The title features a mix of gameplay styles including real-time infiltration, turn-based tactical combat, and managing a growing team of misfits.

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