7 Grand Steps: What Ancients Begat

It's like a solo board game but without the transparency. It appears extremely random and often rigged against you. By age 2 out of 7, I maxed my family's social standing and had a ruler with mostly maxed out stats, several heroic titles to his name, beloved by populace and administrators to the extent that they made him king. The city likewise had great stats and economy with everything expanded to heavy extents (hence the popularity). Then the challenge of the age came and there was zero feedback on why I failed or succeeded any of the challenges. A failure nuked my family and reset everything I had accomplished so I crashed the game and retried a number of times. Choices that were wildly successful once (and fit his stats and those of the city) randomly failed at other times, resulting in insta-death. There was no indication of why I was losing sometimes and winning others or which stats were being tested. The only consistent thing was that across ~10 reloads (against, with everything just about maxed) my family was somehow destroyed every single time and reset from a king descended from generations of nobles, to the lowliest unskilled worker with zero transference of progress. If you want to essentially delete a savegame and do it frequently, you better leave the player some sense of agency.

Weird Statagy game, would not recommend to play

Ich kann dieses Spiel nicht empfehlen, da ich hier nicht hinter gestiegen war und mich das Spiel nicht gerade dazu motivierte, dahinter zu steigen. Das Gameplay an sich ist einfach und mann klickt nur rum. Dennoch habe ich keine Ahnung, was es sein soll.

I love this game. It's estetic choices brim with personality. The gameplay loop is fresh and filled with surprising complexity which lines up well with the story. My favorite part is the love boost. If a character lands on a space where an ally or lover in love stand they get sent further ahead. This is super powerful and two characters in love can be total beasts. The fun happens when only one in the couple is in love. Very quickly the uninterested party gets to do loads more than the love stricken character. Often its even beneficial to sacrifice the love smitten fool for a few extra tokens before a new generation takes over. This sort of gameplay incentive towards callous characters is something I really enjoy in my roleplaying games, and this slot machine, historical, CYOA, rpg, manages to hit that mood to a tee.

good game. hope they someday make part 2.

Honestly, I never understood how anything worked or what I was supposed to do.

I found it to be an exercise in some of the most redundant choices that could be repeated. It's a slog, essentially. I wouldn't say the game is bad though, I think it just starts to become a bit repetitive quite quickly.

Played this while waiting for the next drop in Apex, and I have to say it made me really enjoy idle clicker's more with a pacing and game play that doesn't need to draw all of my focus - think having a tv on while you're cleaning your house. It's an odd compliment I know but i'ts the best i can describe my experience, which also is why it shows 38hrs of gameplay for me although I probably dedicated few than 10 direct hrs cause I would just keep it running while I did other things. Would enjoy seeing this revisited in a modern era

Fantastic board game with a unique premise. The mechanics make for interesting decisions. The story generation got me invested in the people and the lives they lead.

Nice idea, but it just didn't translate into a fun experience.