
Source of the Nile Digital Edition is the officially licensed, single-player digital adaptation of the classic 1978 exploration board game created by Ross Maker and David Wesely. A challenging game of discovery on a hex-grid map of Africa, where the player competes against nature to survive.
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About
Source of the Nile - digital edition is designed to be an educational and challenging game in which players compete with nature. Luck tends to be a major element in the game but can be overcome by careful play. Because the game situation is forever changing, there is no single best strategy; however, players must weigh risks against gains with every decision they make and good judgment will pay off.
The game is played on a hexagon-grid map showing Africa from Khartoum to Capetown and Lagos to Mombasa. The periphery of this map, showing the territory known ca. 1820, is filled in; the interior is blank and ready to be explored by the player.
FEATURES:
* This game enables you to follow the great 19th century explorers in their search for the source of the Nile.
* Terrain, native tribes and other discoveries are semi-randomly determined, with allowance made for previous discoveries in adjacent hexagons.
* Meet and deal with native tribes.
* Discover mountains, jungles, deserts and great lakes in the uncharted heart of the Dark Continent.
* Survive animal attacks, disease and starvation.
* Overcome superstition, desertion and disaster.
* The game features 481 blank hexagons ready to be explored.
NOTE:
CHECK YOUR RESOLUTION AND DISPLAY SETTINGS
This game cannot be played on resolutions lower than 1920 x 1080 and Windows display scale must be set to 100%.
The following may help with ultra-wide monitors: Right-click the game in Steam → Properties → General → Launch Options and paste this -force-window -windowed -w 1920 -h 1080
It is HIGHLY recommended that you download and read the PDF manual from the Steam store before playing.
AI was used to assist with the production of some images.
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Reviews
My explorer, Doctor McNugget, and his intrepid party, found a 15,000 peak and were attacked by a hostile tribe, but escaped back to England with only one casualty. A poor Askari that fell from his canoe in a mountain rapids pass. Absolutely would avoid getting eaten again. 10/10. Thanks Friday Night Software for coding this timeless classic board game. Infinitely re-playable. Yes, strategy is key in this game. And accidents happen. It's deadly, even if you play it perfect. After your first expedition money becomes less tight. Hire more Askari and arm them. They hunt and protect you. Bearers are only good at the beginning of the expedition, generally. I tend to dismiss them as we eat our rations, so the food stores last longer. If you run into a huge cache of ivory or something, though... meh. Maybe can't carry all of it out. And yes, restarting with a new colleague after dying was a big part of the original board-game, from my recollection.
A fun trip down memory lane for those who were fans of the old SotN board game. Be aware the game lacks any sort of Settings menu, so if you have a wide-screen monitor you may have some issues here getting the game to display properly ... it will simply fill the screen of whatever monitor you are using.
Terrible game... every attempt into Africa has met with disaster... if you are lucky you get back to a port and back to England.... but go in knowing the game is so horribly designed that you have a 100 percent chance of disaster... I have gone in more than 20 times and all met with disaster... the game is a little interesting but is still very depressing... I played the board game years ago and it was never that pathetic.
Scratches the need to explore Africa itch.
A great port of a classic hex and counter game.
In dire need of play testing. Some annoying programming choices and logic errors by the Dev. * Normally an explorer can do anything a bearer can do but he has chosen to adopt this bizarros mechanism where you have to manually tell the game your doing bearer work. If your expedition has askari you obviously don't want to be in bearer mode but should you suffer a disaster which say kills your bearer who is say leading some pack animal carrying all your food the pack animals will wander off before your multi-role multi-talented explorer can lean over and grab the reigns of the horses. So sad, too bad you have just lost most of your food. This has been the doom many an expedition. * Overburdened. While travelling on foot I find a canoe by the side of a lake. I am unable to convert my travel mode to canoe because I am now overburdened by the weight of the canoe. The only way to become unburdened is to cache the canoe. Catch 22 Hence no canoe for me. * Overburdened. If people are sick and your staying put, ie waiting for people to recover ie not moving ie not carrying stuff the game still checks to see if you able to carry all your stuff and if not forces you to discard the excess stuff. Your not even allowed to cache stuff until you destroy the excess stuff. This is just stupidity, how hard is it to check your carry capacity only when you have give orders to move out. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3420174963 [i]>>> Couldn't all of these overburdened issues and Explorer Bearer hat problems be resolved by checking if the expedition is exceeding its carry capacity AFTER the player has given orders to move out. If the explorer is paddling, carrying or leading only then do the Askari start deserting. [/i] * Only journalists can hire a ship. Everyone else has to go where the whims of fate may send them. You can't continue your previous expedition, your now playing quantum leap. Fair enough if you don't have the money to charter a ship but you don't even get that option. This sucks a lot of the joy out of the game. You can't even wait for a free ship to pass your way. This never happened to Richard Burton. * Canoe expeditions. 7 bearers and an explorer acting as a bearer paddling a canoe. One guide and No Askari. I enter a swamp. I am now searching for a possible river entering the swamp so I can continue on my merry way but when I click on a blank hex I am not shown what the hex contains. * I cache a canoe in a lake. I cant pick up the canoe because I don't have a canoe and cant enter the lake. * I know the rules say you can't keep money once you set sail to Africa. I have always found this rule somewhat daft. What they don't have banks in England? Explores don't have friends or family?
A very unique and different game. Be sure to read the manual thoroughly almost all problems playing are explained in the manual. This game, in the words of Nathan Explosion is "BRUTAL!" Sometimes you can't even get 2 hexes explored. Sometimes you die on your third move (but you do have 3 lives via associates taking up your quest). Then you go 3 expeditions with no real issues. This version like the original board game is very luck driven. But after about 50 or so expeditions (each taking 15 minutes max) you start getting prepared for the various disasters. Watch your supplies, when you get to 50% head back to port and consider Reckless movement if there are any delays on the return. The differences in explorers abilities is very interesting with pluses and minuses for each. They do make a difference. The game is perfect for a few quick plays whenever. Highly recommended !
Oh man! The stories this game tells! It took me a few fumbling turns to understand the flow of the game, but once I got it, the turns racked up and the stories wrote themselves. My only complaint is that I can't tell from the opening screens whether or not a canoe would benefit my trip. Other than that--fun stuff!
A very good game and just as frustrating as the board game.
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