7 Grand Steps: What Ancients Begat
Ok, I’ve played this game over a period of years and I’ve stared guiltily at the ‘Mixed’ ratings for about as long.
Simply put, I love dynasty builders, so I’m gonna recommend this game. There are so few games that allow me to try to play through a bunch of historical family drama and this is one of them.
It’s a strange game, to be sure–but in gaming, strange is never a bad thing. But it does mean that this game is niche and just because I recommend doesn’t mean I have any illusions that everybody will enjoy this game. Either you’ll love it or you’ll hate having spent money on it. I don’t know if you’ll completely hate it outright: it’s too hard to categorize. It’s a weird, simple, arcade-style game about an ancient family trying to move up through the ranks. The mechanics have been explained well in other reviews, but the gist is you play out entire lifetimes, getting hitched (or not), giving birth to children that are a pain to feed and keep from hating each other, and you’ll be prompted with all sorts of story events. You’ll often go up and down. An entire arc (pushing through each age, last I checked I think there were about three) would take 15 hours. Plenty of replay value, simply based on choices in story events.
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Indie Games.
Towards the end of the Copper Age, things were finally looking up for my family. After many years of being bottom dwellers in the social caste system my family discovered the “alphabet” and the art of being a “physician”. This thrust us into the upper middleclass, and my only daughter, Senet, became the best child this family had ever seen. She was above the other children in the village with an absolute understanding of science and literature. When Senet left to discover herself she took a sizable inheritence with her.
– Real player with 20.7 hrs in game
Divide and Conquer: The Board Game
I’m really enjoying this game. The AI is challenging, but not impossible. Fun to play and exercise the brain.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.
Lew Pulsipher’s Doomstar
Doomstar is a nice, space-themed, turn-based casual strategy game with easy graphics and pleasing music, from a friendly dev.
This game was made for pvp, the whole campaing is just a long tutorial, so buy it only if you plan to play it with friends or community members.
The mechanics are partly close to chess - move with one unit at a time on a grid, fleets come out face to face - but it has significant luck factor too. If the opponents dont hesitate too much, a battle isnt longer than 1/2-1 hour, but Doomstar supports Steam Turn Notifications therefore you are able to play it considered and slow.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.
The game features a small campaign full of unbalanced missions (the AI is given powerful ships in greater quantities), more fair skirmishes against the AI, and asynchronous online multiplayer. Doomstar incorporates the basic game rules of the classic board game Stratego (simple attack ratings, unknown ship attributes until attacked, highest ship number wins) with a reduced number of units for faster gameplay. The goal is to destroy the enemy command ship with any vessel. Mines don’t move but destroy everything except light fighters and carriers. Fighters can move as many spaces as they want across the board. Battle cruisers and dreadnoughts are the most powerful units on the board. Black holes allow units to move multiple spaces in a single turn, and two set of fighters can attack the same enemy in the same turn. The AI is decent enough at the game to provide a good challenge, although online multiplayer is where the true action lies. Fans of Stratego will enjoy Doomstar, but the feature set is fairly basic.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Theatre of War
A Strategy Board Game Like No Other
The rolling hills of the battlefield lay before you as you carefully move your units into position. The clock is ticking, and the enemy is already attacking the vulnerable city near the center of the board with bomber units. Will you pull off your attack and annihilate the enemy? Or will you be outsmarted by your cunning opponent?
From the studio that created the Harpoon series comes this unique real-time strategy game set on a surreal tile-based board game battlefield. Wage war over three eras of combat: Clash swords and loose arrows in Medieval style, roll tanks and march infantry to victory in the Great War setting, and take to the skies with aerial units in the Contemporary mode. Each battle setting has its own unique set of pre-arranged battle scenarios to test your ability to use each unit’s strengths to your advantage, and to guard against their weaknesses. Put your strategic abilities to the ultimate test!
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Engage your opponent in a game that looks like Chess, but plays like a real-time strategy game with individual unit stats, projectile attacks, and the ability to move multiple pieces simultaneously.
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Gain the advantage by adjusting your view of the battlefield between a 3D angle and an overhead tactical perspective. Zoom in and out, and pan the camera around the battlefield to find and engage your enemy.
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Play against the computer in 35 designed scenarios, or compete against a friend in the local two player versus mode.
Note: Original network multiplayer modes are included but, due to the age of this title, not supported for this release.
Feud
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From a quick look at the game, being a game developer myself, first of all I think the mechanics are really, really good for a game like this. They don’t look all that good at first glance, but are unbelievably fun to actually play.
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I think that in a way the game feels a lot worse than it is because of the UI, and I think a reskin would really improve the feel of the gameplay in general.
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An undo would be useful, but i think a confirm before moving might be a better option, especially as a small mistake can end the game. That way you get to see what will be caused by your actions.
– Real player with 7.4 hrs in game
Fun game! As the other reviews say, it is comparable to a much simpler version of chess.
The AI (even on hard) is pretty easy, though, and the only option for online multiplayer is 24-hours per turn, which makes it difficult, since player on player games can easily last 20+ turns. I’d recommend at least trying this game (it’s free!) and it’s even better if you have a friend to play it with (as there is a hotseat option).
If there were online, 1 minute turns, (and maybe a ranked system at some point), I think this game could really take off.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Blastboard
I’m playing this now with 3 friends and I have to say…I’m very surprised! This is actually a real fun game to play in a group and a great time killer when solo. I run 3 screens and it works fine. More features/DLC would be cool or even Workshop. For the price you can’t lose IMHO.
– Real player with 116.1 hrs in game
Blastboard Impressed my friends and I We are always looking for multiplayer games that are fun! This just made the list. For the price you can’t go wrong, hours of fun with friends. Do i recommend Blastboard… Hell Yes if you have friends and a pulse this is worth checking out. …….what are you waiting for ;-)
– Real player with 79.1 hrs in game
Khet 2.0
As promessed, here is an update to my original review. The original is below.
The devs certainly do their best for us. Every bug or question has been answered and followed up and as far as I know, has been solved. The bugs that I have encountered seem to be fixed now.
So thumbs up for the developer!
Read my original message for the rest of the game:
This game certainly has its flaws, but it is a very nice game and its core usually works.
At this time of writing, I experience crashes every time I try to do a rematch. No problem, I go back to the main menu and start a new game. One time, I had a crash mid-game (and I think I was winning). Too bad.
– Real player with 14.3 hrs in game
To summarize in few words - the game is a gorgeous mixture of Chess with Deflektor, taking the best ideas from both. ( (Btw. - does anyone know what the 2nd game is? ;-)
! a computer game for some 8bit machines from 80’s, you may find some free remakes in the net, eg. Deflektor X4)
Funs of lasers and even light sabres will realize soon that there is not much of an FPS here ;-) Just a ‘boring’, almost static board with some 2-colour pieces. And some rules that you have to read about - on how to play and win or lose…
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Shinobi’s Way - a jigsaw chess tale
Eh, for the price it’s okay. The ‘chess’ mode is pretty bad (just jigsaws shaped vaguely like chess pieces), but otherwise the jigsaws are fine. There are only 6 of them though, but with 4 different amounts of pieces and the option to turn rotation on and off it offers just enough variety for the asking price.
– Real player with 7.9 hrs in game
A very nice jigsaw puzzle, relaxing and bold. If you ara fan of the Knight´s Retreat series you are gonna love it.
i reccomend.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Zenbones
Zenbones
A minimal rendition of Mahjong Solitaire.
Features
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20 included layouts
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30 included backgrounds
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create your own layouts
Ancient Go
Early Access Day 1 review:
Edit: Thumbs up because it looks promising. (I’d hold off getting it until counting method issues are resolved, hopefully.)
Project seems promising. It includes basic tutorials for rules and scoring, a VS. AI mode and an Online multiplayer mode.
The AI is not particularly strong on any setting (Hard is when it starts playing slightly better moves, maximum tends to take a bit more time to play moves, but not a LOT of time.) So (at least at this stage) the AI is really meant for beginners. It would be nice to get a stronger one later down the line, but I’d rather see good multiplayer added than the focus be on AI.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
“Ancient Go” aims to be an app for total beginners to Go, which is great. Currently, outside of “Ancient Go,” the only other app out there on Steam is “Crazy Stone Deep Learning -The First Edition-,” which is $79.99. However, “Crazy Stone” is arguably meant for committed Go players, who are much stronger at the game. So, “Ancient Go” is a cheaper alternative for “Crazy Stone” that allows the Steam community to start playing Go at a cheaper price. That said, “Ancient Go” has its strengths and weaknesses.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game