This was mentioned a bit in the indie thread, but the game is so good and so unique it deserves a thread of it’s own.
Essentially a board game where you have to have your family survive through the ages, it’s a brilliant mashup of the old Avalon Hill game Advanced Civilizations, Crusader Kings II, and a little bit of King of Dragon Pass thrown into the soup for good measure, all played out on something resembling a Pachinko machine.
If you go here you can get the demo, or pre-order for $10 and get the beta (with a Steam key at release). There are also several videos on Youtube demonstrating game concepts and mechanics.
I doubt you’ve ever played anything quite like it.
It is certainly an interesting game. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. After the demo it didn’t seem like something that would hold my attention long term.
I don’t think they explained the benefit of multiple children very well in the demo. When you make your child the next adult to be controlled, the rest of the children disappear. Why improve anyone other than the first child? Plus when you have multiple kids the others get pissed if you don’t feed them some chips.
They do need to explain that better. When you change generations the siblings go elsewhere but they can still have an impact on you. If you neglect them they can steal from you down the road for instance. The upside is that if something happens to your current sibling and he/she dies before having a child, you can continue with a sibling.
So one of the other siblings returns from wherever they went off to and you can control them now? So it may be beneficial to have at least a second child and feed them some chips so they don’t completely stink.
If your character dies without children, you can continue with a sibling if you have one, otherwise it’s game over. If your character has a sibling who likes him/her, you will get extra tokens every turn from that sibling as a gift. On the other hand, a sibling that dislikes/hates your character may appear on the board as an “enemy” pawn. You can’t land on a space that has an enemy on it (but you can pass it, as I found out)
Okay, I bought into the beta, and I’m really enjoying the expanded gameplay. I’ve had some really frustrating runs, including a set of three or four siblings who couldn’t find someone who would marry them and eventually were devoured by the crocs. I hate it when a new character gets offered only the crappy nicknames (the coward, the cold, the brute, etc) because for some reason they seem to have a much harder time. But I don’t know if I’m imagining that or how big of a difference those names even make.
Enemies can appear for a couple reasons. The most obvious is after marrying, any neighbor who was in love with your new spouse has a chance to be jealous (enemy) or friendly (ally).
Nightgaunt, those ‘crappy’ personalities are the choices offered if your chosen successor doesn’t succeed in his or her rite of passage. With success, you are offered ‘positive’ personalities. Success in a rite of passage depends upon the successor’s skills.
The choice you make from whichever personalities offered DOES make a difference. If you pick ‘coward’, then that person will make cowardly decisions in the three short tales during his or her life. If you pick ‘brute’ they will act brutish.
However, ‘personalities’ do not affect heroic legends. You always get to decide those choices. In fact, your decisions can change the successor’s personality.
Hey, Musenik. Is it right to assume that since your username is the same as the Mousechief twitter account that you are Keith Nemitz, the maker of 7 Grand Steps? If so, just wanted to say it’s a really fascinating game; you should be very proud. Good luck in the IGF competition!
Thanks for the info, too. Since you’re here, can you tell me if the measure of how equally you treat your children is based on giving them all a token on any given single turn, or if it tracks how much you’ve given them over many turns to see if you’ve been equal over time? Does that question make sense?
Nightgaunt, children consider their treatment over the span of a few turns. So, yes, you can skip a turn or two, but catch up quickly.
Oh, and just because a child might have a bad episode with another, doesn’t mean they will dislike them into their generation. It takes a couple episodes to determine their opinions.
Musenik, first of all, stop following me around. And second, if you are Keith, good, because that will save me from having to email you later. :-)
Anyway - a question. Just how active are the AI-controlled characters? We see them moving around and picking up and making beads, but in the course of several games I’ve only see the A.I. make one discovery and climb into the next social track once. It would be nice if A.I. activity was a bit more transparent.
Stop posting to additional forums and I won’t have to answer for all the questions you instigate, and all those people who suddenly by the game. Um, on second thought…
hmm, transparent AI, care to elaborate? (heh, aren’t their shadows transparent enough for ya?)
I dunno - maybe a report on important events and actions the A.I. players take like so-and so had completed a heroic quest, or Lucy and Ricky just had a boy named Little Ricky. It’s even easy to miss someone being et by a crocodile if you aren’t paying attention.
Seriously, in many trial games I’ve observed ONE discovery by the A.I., and ONE case of the A.I. moving up the social ladder. I’m assuming there’s more going on behind the curtain, but it would be nice to have more of a glimpse.
I tried the demo, it’s certainly very charming and has that one more turn feel… I fear it will become repetitive over time, but right now I’m quite tempted by this beta+discount thing.
I have a theory about that. If the storytelling isn’t working for you, then I could understand it getting repetitive. There are some extras in the full game, like the ruling mini-games. Those are distinct games. Also, the heroic legends and challenges of the age give a break from the core game. FYI
This looks really interesting. I’m trying the demo but I find the lack of window scaling off-putting, since the game is less than quarter screen size on my desktop.
Does/will the full version support more modern resolutions or scaling options?
