Epic Palace : Knossos

As a Greek I just had to try this game. -Game performance is really good and the camera transition feels smooth. -Interface isn't too fancy but is informative and simplistic enough to provide a compelling experience. -Gameplay-wise the game is fairly simple, craft X trade for Y, keep upgrading. -I love the aesthetic/art and truly feels like a Knossos reconstruction. -Price is relatively okay, I feel like 9.99 would be more appropriate for a game like this, definitely get it on a sale. I hope that you will keep up the good work and provide more historical reconstructions, I really love your throne room implementation.

This is not a city builder, but a time and resource juggler. Food for workers actions, actions to manufacture. Trade items with visiting ships to keep them happy. I'm going to stop playing now as I wanted something slower and not a juggler, but it was a fun 8 hours and a good distraction. It's good if you like that sort of thing, but it is not a city builder.

This game was developed in close cooperation with an archaeologist of the period to make the art, resources and mechanics as close as possible to our state of the knowledge of the Bronze Age Aegean. The art of the game is beautiful and conveys very well the overall mood of the Mediterranean seascape. As an archaeologist of the period myself, I really enjoyed the historical accuracy, as well as the immersive reconstruction of the throne room. The game has good replaybility and I found it overall very enjoyable. Would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating period of Minoan culture while having fun!

TL;DR A simple yet entertaining resource management game with around 15-20 hours of replay value and well worth the price if you're looking for a fun management/trading experience. Pros: + Outstanding art direction (some of the best representations of Palatial Minoan society in media, period) + Fun core gameplay loop (2-3 hours/game) + Good visuals & decent, albeit repetitive score + The trading system though not the focus of the game is very enjoyable ('lootboxes' appear after sending ships on trading missions) Neutral: * Limited long-term replayability. There's only 1-2 true 'playstyles' one can undertake in the game * The interface, though effective, has some quirks which take time to get used to * Questionable game mechanics. The resource management & trading systems are nice but the remainder fall to the wayside (diplomacy/war, throneroom) and can be entirely ignored while still achieving victory in a short time * Imbalance is an issue with some events, as certain luxuries can only be obtained via trading and not production, which can lead to scenarios where it's impossible to win in the lategame Cons: - The three provided gamemodes don't vary substantially and have little effect on playstyle, which is disappointing - The game can be truly punishing if you try to deviate from the 'optimal' playstyle (miss a single diplomat from a random city? Now they're sending an army to raze Knossos and you don't have any resources to fight/placate them, good luck lol) - Replayability is locked behind 'Knowledge' points obtained by winning games. These are applied in the main menu and provide a starting bonus to the player's palace. Unfortunately the game provides little indication of where/how these bonuses are used. There's ~12 bonuses to unlock & once they're unlocked they can be chosen indefinitely. The issue is that only a single bonus can be selected for every game and some are SUBSTANTIALLY better than others, meaning that once you've unlocked the 1 great one there's no incentive to continue playing.

Great and relaxing city builder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMrZ279pwEA

This is not a vast game, but tries to do something very specififc, which it excels at: It simulates the characteristic Palace Economies of Bronze Age Crete, i.e. the Minoan civilisation. There aren't really any other games out there exploring this culture and this ressource juggler is a great window into that fascinating culture. It's obviously a labour of love, quite immersive and polished, I really enjoyed the visuals. It's also quite relaxing, the underlying loop of allocating workers and resources is very enjoyable and seeing your bustling palace progress through ever grander stages is really satisfying. It also works quite well in casual settings. Overall, for what it tries to be, an excellent game.

It's not the hardest game, but it is quite fun to play.

Keine Rezension, aber ein erster Eindruck. Positiv: + die Grafik + die Spielidee incl. des Palastausbaus + man muss sich gut überlegen, wofür man seine knappen Ressourcen einsetzt Negativ : - zu oberflächliches Tutorial, das etliche Fragen offen lässt (Z.B. hatte ich nach einem Sieg Archivpunkte, die mir zwei Bonuskarten einbrachten. Wo sind diese Karten hin? Was bewirken sie? Muss man die für jedes Spiel neu erringen? Aber wozu, wenn man doch schon gesiegt hat. Für ein neues Spiel konnte ich sie jedenfalls nicht nutzen.) Unausgereiftes Spielprinzip (.Z.B.: Der Palastausbau verschlingt unwahrscheinlich Ressourcen, die an anderer Stelle fehlen. Man kann ihn aber getrost vernachlässigen und siegen, indem man nur die Wünsche der Priester und Diplomaten erfüllt.) - mangelnder Wiederspielwert, da jede neue Runde nach demselben Schema abläuft - gehetzter Spielverlauf - im Sekundentakt stapeln sich Wünsche und Forderungen, was den Spaßfaktor - vor allem den Ausbau - ausbremst. Mein erstes Fazit (nach ca. einer Woche Spielzeit): eigentlich ein schönes Spiel, das anfangs durchaus Spaß gemacht hat, aber schnell Frust und Langeweile aufkommen ließ. Schade! Hier wurde- in meinen Augen - Potential verschenkt.

Its cool to see the main building expand with the upgrades.

The game is decent enough. You get a glimpse into the ancient culture and everything you learn is based on real archaelogy. Is it really worth 15 Euros? I say 10 would be a more reasonable price. You will have seen most of the game after 5 to 10 hours.