As this is a key visual element in the game, I wanted to make sure the car was a design I was happy with. Additionally, I decided to incorporate some of the feedback I have had from the tutorial group which led to thinking about how the steam car might work. With this in mind, I produced the following sketch.
This is a very simplistic overview of the engine that I decided to build the rest of the vehicle around. Using the most popular vehicle design (as judged by my peers in University as well as friends and family) I came up with a design that I felt was appropriate for the Steampunk theme as well as being plausable as a form of transport. Some Steampunk fiction is almost as far-fetched as high fantasy but I wanted Igford to have a grounding in reality - I am a big fan of Jule Verne and H.G Wells and the ideas penned by both of these authors often seem perfectly realistic.
The design needed a name and out of nowhere while sitting in traffic, I thought of one: Maxton Muycrosse. Of course, it's not that catchy, but not many automobile manufacturers has short, snappy names in the last decade of the 19th century. The car itself is the Eighty-Eight, named after the year in which the design was conceived. So, finally, the finished steam car... soon I hope to see a Maxton Muycrosse Eighty-Eight driving noisily around the streets of Igford!
