7 Grand Steps

[Zederick]

Has anyone else been playing 7 Grand Steps by Mousechief? They just allowed early purchase, which gets you a very complete beta, and I've been playing it in extended, many-hour sessions that rival those long nights of playing "just one more turn" of Civ. 
 

It took me about 10 to 15 minutes to really get a hang of the mechanics and basic strategy, but once the idea of tokens representing wealth/ideas/opportunities gelled, I found myself getting engrossed in the generational ups-and-downs of my family. I cheered when my ancestor discovered mathematics, and for generations afterwards, I made sure to teach my children mathematics with pride. I saw my family struggle as farm workers, move up to generals of the king's army, and fall back down to being shepherds. And I learned to do whatever I could to avoid having too many kids.

 

While the actual mechanics of the game aren't terribly complicated (and can be rather obfuscated at times), it does an amazing job at generating a procedural story - much like the Civ or Sim City games, but on a much more personal scale, looking at a single family through the ages, rather than a full nation or city. It's something I've been very interested in for a while, considering my background in open-world games and emergent narrative, and I'm glad to see more games and more game writer/designers exploring its potentials.

Anyone else been spending time in this game?

[Gormongous]

I played the demo for a few hours and found much of what you said to be true. Like Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, it's a fascinating system that really doesn't have much parallel except in some of Vic Davis' games, as a board game designed for computer play. If it drops on Steam, it'll probably be a buy for me.

 

That said, there are a couple of little things that the game could do better, which were obvious even during the demo experience. The best child to make head of family is pretty unclear, and if you don't save at least a couple tokens as an inheritance your game ends right there. I like some of the terror of discovering board game mechanics on my own without tutorialization, but it seems a bit rough here.

[Zederick]

Yeah, the rules for what does and doesn't affect each chance can be a little maddening at times - I've had successful children who tried to get a spouse every turn and were turned down every time for no reason I could tell, to say nothing of my confusion over what does and doesn't prepare a child for their coming of age. I'm a little torn over whether the uncertainty of those sorts of rules are a problem or a deliberate vagueness. It certainly inspires a degree of superstitious play, which leads to interesting stories, but not always satisfying game-playing experiences.

Of course, the single change I'd make if I could would be to have spaces on the board highlight when you pick up a token with their symbol - especially if they then display the space a character will move to when you hold the token over their slot. There have been too many times, especially early in playing, when I misjudged where a move would take a character, or moved the wrong one, or so forth. It seems like a good UI fix, but of course those aren't always easy to implement.

[clyde]

Just picked this up from the Humble Bundle. I really enjoy this game. I agree with everything the two of you said. 

Besides the one-more-turn aspect and the way it manages to feel like a casual game even though it spans generations, I really like how mechanics that appear absurdly orthogonal begin to create stories; the parent that labors into old age for the sake of giving their children opportunity, accumulation of capital within a family, the occasional exacerbation of separation between wealth and classes. The game makes me think about all sorts of interesting things even though most of the time I'm just making Candy-Landesque decisions. 

 

Demo