[Steampunk Saturday] Progress Episode One: iAm Involved in Mystery

This is the first "official" Steampunk Saturday post.  I have posted steampunk content before but I am now devoting one post a week towards steampunk.  I have enough ideas to run with this for a good chunk of time so I will do this for the next several months at a minimum.  There were several web series that I posted about previously but I decided to take a look at something fresh and relatively recent.  After a quick search for "steampunk web series" this is one of the results.  It appears that they are only 3 episodes in on a scheduled 10 episode run.  For more information, you can go to Progress: the Series to read about the cast, crew, sponsors, events, and other topics. 

This episode begins with a short narration mixed in with the opening credits.  During this time the narrator informs the viewers that "it's 1888 and only the aristocracy has toilets but all of the empire has the internet". Then it is explained that "internet is a series of tubes" with steam coursing through them.  The steam comes from coal-burning furnaces that have to be maintained by immigrants shoveling in more coal constantly.  This makes for an appropriately dystopian setup for this story.  For the rest of the episode, a hacker is surfing the net  and breaking into several websites.  Upon further viewing the hacker stumbles onto a horrific event displayed on the web.

Progress does a superb job of setting the mood and atmosphere in this initial episode.  The visuals and design help bring the world to life.  They also throw in some modern internet references such as one character proclaiming that "I'm trolling" and the "Goggle Glass" device that makes an appearance.  Just imagine a steampunk version of Google Glasses and you are on the right track!  If you are a steampunk gamer, the best thing to take away from this episode include the immersion details and setting touches like the computer device that resembles a manual typewriter that shoots steam to open up a new page.  I did not have enough time to stat anything up yet because work was busy this week.  I needed to get this posted so I could get the ball rolling on my blog reorganization but at some point there will be SteamCraft stats for the appropriate stuff.

Enough talking - check out episode one below.