7 Grand Steps, Step 1: What Ancients Begat
Windows - Released - June 7, 2013
7 Grand Steps: What Ancients Begat is a story of a family dynasty, translated into a board game.
The game starts with the player choosing a specified legend the family dynasty wishes to aim for: climbing the social ladder, discovery, or heroic deeds. Each legend may significantly alter how the game is played, providing benefits or even disadvantages to the player. These legends requires a specified amount of khet or points, which are to be acquired during the board game.
The Wheel of Life
The board game, a form of wheel of life, starts with a young husband and wife in the labor class during the Copper age, each with a set of skills. Each turn, either individual may attempt to create tokens (by using an ingot), which will produce a random amount of tokens, depending on their skills. Movement requires using existing tokens on the game board. An irrigation token for example, allows the selected individual to move to the nearest irrigation tile. Some tiles may have khet bonuses on them. Moving an individual on that tile will acquire half of the khet, which will contribute points towards the family's legend. Some khet bonuses are larger than others and other non-player characters (NPCs) i.e. neighbours will also attempt to attain these bonuses before the player.
With each turn, time passes, bringing each of the individuals on the board closer to the crocodiles, which means certain death. Thus, the player must balance between token creation, movement, and acquiring khet in order to avoid this fate. During this time, random events may occur, contributing to a generational story for the family. Up to a certain point, movement tiles will stop producing, marking old age. At this point, the player chooses a successor from the children of the family to start a new generation.
Family and Children
A new generation family, may it be female or male, must first find a suitable mate to start a family. A few candidates of NPCs are available, which the player must move the character to the same tile location to court and hopefully, wed. As husband and wife, working together may produce offspring. A single family may acquire up to six children, though only one of them is chosen by the player to start a new generation.
Children may optionally be taught to advance their skills by giving them tokens produced by their parents. If the family has more than one child, fairness should considered, as favoring one child over the other, may result in sibling rivalry. Sibling relations, may it be love or hate between siblings will carry on through the generations.
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