Predynastic Egypt

This is a game originally developed for the Android platform as a very lite strategy game in ancient Egypt. I really wanted to like it, especially after reading a review about it being similar to Civilization, but unfortunately I found it mediocre. Graphics: they are quite decent and honestly the best thing in this game. They are drawn in a cartoon style and sometimes lightly animated. They fit well with the global theme of ancient Egypt. Interface: painful. It is impossible to miss that this game was developed originally for tablets or smartphones... There is no way to change the few keyboard shortcuts, the entire game is drag-and-drop with the mouse, no right click whatsoever, the few infobox on hovering are never useful. Ugh. Gameplay: boring and tedious. Although there are a few resources, there is no depth in the gameplay. At the end, you will end up micro-managing your workers by drag-and-dropping them from one tile to another to optimize resource allocation (kind of the job of the Advisor in Civilization, but you have to do manually in this game). Gameplay is turn-based. That's about it. I won the game at the second playthrough, and quite seriously I don't know why I stuck so long with it, as the replayability is non-existent. Basically, in each game you start exactly at the same spot of the same map, with the exact same allocation of resources, and the exact same events happen during the playthrough. So the only thing that can change from one game to another is the difficulty level (building costs etc), but I don't see the point of optimizing my playthrough on a heavily scripted scenario where everything is identical. Overall I find this game hard to recommend and I would give it 2 stars. Add one star to this rating if you like the setting of ancient Egypt (historical events are described lightly, with one to two sentences per event) and maybe another star if you like the idea of playing a kind of linear adventure game disguised as a strategy game.

I played the game on Android. At first things did not seem in place but after a while of getting used to the gameplay dynamics, it became better. To get the highest scores, you need to know that optional bonuses at the beginning reduce the end-game score. Also, some events, especially end-game, required deep resource planning too many turns before it happens so playing the game once is obligatory for the highest scores. But after a tiring session of finishing the game, I did not have the slightest wish to start anew. In my opinion, this game is good for only one playthrough.

On the surface it looks like a 4X strategy game in the vein of Civ or the Legends series, you grow your empire tile by tile from one settlement into the early kingdom of Egypt. You have resources to manage, manpower to allocate and battles to win. Starting on easy difficulty, you breeze through the game in 2-3h max and that's it, you've seen all the content the game has to offer ! For everything in the game is preset, events will fire at a given turn and a game will always play out more or less the same way. Overall RNG is limited to a few elements in the game which don't necessarily affect the course of the game. The real challenge is to complete all objectives as early as possible, turning the game into a puzzler where you have to think out your strategy in advance and optimise every turn. So strategy fans, especially Civ fans, are bound to be disappointed but people who enjoy perfecting their run will find a very enjoyable game with a nice ancient Egypt flavour.

I became addicted to this Civ-style game within a few minutes. It’s lightweight compared to the “biggies”, yet incorporates many features of an empire-building game in a simplistic and novel way. The interface is easy and intuitive. Graphics are lovely, in line with the Egyptian theme. I thought the “hieroglyphic”, animated representation of workers and the drag and drop feature of moving them around to be quite unique and refreshing. Areas for production, food, etc were clearly displayed, as were the number of turns and effects. I was very satisfied with the level of strategy. There’s production, exploration, research, building, growth, conflict/relationships with other tribes and optional bonus goals to be considered, while factoring in best use of workers and the number of turns required for an action. It’s even more fun when the win goal itself has a limited number of turns. Thrown into the mix are random events/disasters to contend with. All of this, in a neat package. For me there is replay value. Apart from a sense of “I could have done that better”, there are different difficulty settings to sample. I do hope there'll be further games from these devs on GOG in the future.