Gameplay

When the thoughts of a game about Ancient Egypt started to form, it's not immediately that we knew it will be just a single game or a series. We had a lot of ideas, but when we started to work on Predynastic Egypt, it became more and more clear we will not be able to realize all of our plans in just one game. That's how we knew it will be a series of games, each game about its own historical period.

The idea was not just to make another historical strategy, but to make the player feel the reality of that time, let him experience first-hand how did this ancient civilization work.
Predynastic Egypt was the first step on the way to fulfilling this idea, and the "Egypt: Old Kingdom" will continue to develop this idea, being the result of two years long work on this series. Today we're presenting to your judgment Egypt: Old Kingdom's gameplay.

The idea of workers cards received a good feedback from Predynastic Egypt Players, so we decided to keep it this way and enhance the system. As before, the player will be interacting with the map via workers cards, by placing it to any selected area. If the selected area is still uncovered, a worker will become a scout and will begin exploration of this area. It may last from 1 turn to 40-60 turns near the end of the game!



As soon as the area is uncovered, scout goes back to the worker cards deck. The player can return him back again as a worker when the knowledge of the new area becomes available after exploration. Every new area has its own features. Depending on what was found in the area, the player can give worker different tasks. For example, in case if papyrus was found, the worker can be appointed to pick up the papyrus gradually, receiving a stable growth of the resource, or he can be appointed to exterminate all of the papyrus at once. In this case, the player will at once get some bigger amount of this resource.

gif (temporarily unavailable)

Another example: the map can reveal several kinds of animals, let's take antelope for our example. When antelope is revealed, it might be friendly or unfriendly toward people, and depending on this player will have to decide the method of interaction with them and give a certain task: tame them, pray to them or exterminate them. Extermination will give the player one-time increase of food (in case of antelopes), praying to animals will help to improve the relationships with them, which eventually will allow the player to tame them. Tamed animals can earn resources to the player, as usual, but they also will give some culture bonus, same as from praying to gods.

gif (temporarily unavailable)

The same way the player will discover about 20 more different effects, which should make map revealing much more interesting.
In the city, there will be other functions available. By placing the worker card in the city region, the player will be able to know more about this region - what kind of buildings are there, how much resources it consumes and provides, etc. Besides, depending on what kind of technologies were researched at the moment, a worker can be assigned a task to build several types of buildings. On a side note, it's interesting to know that one worker card represents about 250 people - not only workers but also their families, elderly people, and children.
Besides described above effects, there are occasional tasks, such as plagues, fires, great personalities. They also have different ways of handling.



All of the cards are animated. We adopted skeletal animation. It made movements smoother, and characters on the cards are now more diverse, with different hairstyles and clothes. Almost every character has a background which explains his/her appearance. Here is a comparison of our old animation from the Predynastic Egypt and the new one from the Old Kingdom game.



Altogether new features made every turn last longer. In the Predynastic Egypt the player made 2-3, max 4 actions per turn, but in the Egypt: Old Kingdom it's possible to make up to 10-12 actions per turn.

Gameplay

When the thoughts of a game about Ancient Egypt started to form, it's not immediately that we knew it will be just a single game or a series. We had a lot of ideas, but when we started to work on Predynastic Egypt, it became more and more clear we will not be able to realize all of our plans in just one game. That's how we knew it will be a series of games, each game about its own historical period.

The idea was not just to make another historical strategy, but to make the player feel the reality of that time, let him experience first-hand how did this ancient civilization work.
Predynastic Egypt was the first step on the way to fulfilling this idea, and the "Egypt: Old Kingdom" will continue to develop this idea, being the result of two years long work on this series. Today we're presenting to your judgment Egypt: Old Kingdom's gameplay.

The idea of workers cards received a good feedback from Predynastic Egypt Players, so we decided to keep it this way and enhance the system. As before, the player will be interacting with the map via workers cards, by placing it to any selected area. If the selected area is still uncovered, a worker will become a scout and will begin exploration of this area. It may last from 1 turn to 40-60 turns near the end of the game!



As soon as the area is uncovered, scout goes back to the worker cards deck. The player can return him back again as a worker when the knowledge of the new area becomes available after exploration. Every new area has its own features. Depending on what was found in the area, the player can give worker different tasks. For example, in case if papyrus was found, the worker can be appointed to pick up the papyrus gradually, receiving a stable growth of the resource, or he can be appointed to exterminate all of the papyrus at once. In this case, the player will at once get some bigger amount of this resource.

gif (temporarily unavailable)

Another example: the map can reveal several kinds of animals, let's take antelope for our example. When antelope is revealed, it might be friendly or unfriendly toward people, and depending on this player will have to decide the method of interaction with them and give a certain task: tame them, pray to them or exterminate them. Extermination will give the player one-time increase of food (in case of antelopes), praying to animals will help to improve the relationships with them, which eventually will allow the player to tame them. Tamed animals can earn resources to the player, as usual, but they also will give some culture bonus, same as from praying to gods.

gif (temporarily unavailable)

The same way the player will discover about 20 more different effects, which should make map revealing much more interesting.
In the city, there will be other functions available. By placing the worker card in the city region, the player will be able to know more about this region - what kind of buildings are there, how much resources it consumes and provides, etc. Besides, depending on what kind of technologies were researched at the moment, a worker can be assigned a task to build several types of buildings. On a side note, it's interesting to know that one worker card represents about 250 people - not only workers but also their families, elderly people, and children.
Besides described above effects, there are occasional tasks, such as plagues, fires, great personalities. They also have different ways of handling.



All of the cards are animated. We adopted skeletal animation. It made movements smoother, and characters on the cards are now more diverse, with different hairstyles and clothes. Almost every character has a background which explains his/her appearance. Here is a comparison of our old animation from the Predynastic Egypt and the new one from the Old Kingdom game.



Altogether new features made every turn last longer. In the Predynastic Egypt the player made 2-3, max 4 actions per turn, but in the Egypt: Old Kingdom it's possible to make up to 10-12 actions per turn.

Maps and graphics

As promised, in this issue we will talk about the graphics and maps.
The main goal of maps creating process was to recreate the city of Memphis and the nature of Nile region as close to the historical truth as possible. Originally we planned to implement 2D graphics, same as for Egypt-1. The main reason for this choice was the fact that neither of our artists had experience in 3D. After finishing work on the Egypt-1, both of them begun to work on the maps for the Egypt-2, and originally the project looked somehow like this:

The map should have been randomly composed out of these tiles, limited by a certain region border. But this composing process later revealed some mistakes which had a negative impact on the visuals of the game. For example, it was impossible to make a seamless alignment of the fields - in some place, a field could end up composed out of two unequal parts: half linen, half grains. And this is why one of our artists, named Max, came up with the idea of finding a 3D artist and try to make a 3D map. This idea was met with enthusiasm, except a little notice from the rest of the team: "Why would we look for another artist when we have you, Max?" And this is how Max had no choice but to start learning 3D graphics. This is one of the first attempts to draw a map:

But working hard and constantly refining their skills out artists are progressively improving the appearance of the city. This is another intermediate version:

Our artists, as well as the rest of the team, hope 3D maps will possess the same warm and cozy atmosphere as a 2D world. They experiment a lot with the textures and lighting, and in our future issues, we promise to show you the result of their work - finalized views of Memphis and other locations.
Located on the green shores of Nile, Memphis will be divided into 51 regions. Each region will possess different types of landscape and vegetation, and also will be inhabited by different animal species. Those animals will not just be there for fun, they will actively influence the daily life of the citizens. Depending on the game complexity level, chosen by the gamer, regions will also have different starter effects, such as food and sources. The development of the city will be done by regions, and players will be able to select the location of every region. The choice is limited only by one rule: new region cannot be built away from the previous buildings.
On the second map - the map of the whole Egypt, Memphis will only be a small dot, not even a region. This map will be divided into 60 regions or so. Exploration principle is basically the same as in the Predynastic Egypt, with a few new features. Exploration will start from one of 5 randomly selected regions and can be carried out in every direction. Besides, the first region and one random region will be explored for the player for free.
Is there anything else you would like to know about maps and graphics? Please don't hesitate to ask in the comments section. We really want to share with you the process of creating the game, the only problem is sometimes it's hard to select which aspect would be the most interesting. See you in the next issue!

Maps and graphics

As promised, in this issue we will talk about the graphics and maps.
The main goal of maps creating process was to recreate the city of Memphis and the nature of Nile region as close to the historical truth as possible. Originally we planned to implement 2D graphics, same as for Egypt-1. The main reason for this choice was the fact that neither of our artists had experience in 3D. After finishing work on the Egypt-1, both of them begun to work on the maps for the Egypt-2, and originally the project looked somehow like this:

The map should have been randomly composed out of these tiles, limited by a certain region border. But this composing process later revealed some mistakes which had a negative impact on the visuals of the game. For example, it was impossible to make a seamless alignment of the fields - in some place, a field could end up composed out of two unequal parts: half linen, half grains. And this is why one of our artists, named Max, came up with the idea of finding a 3D artist and try to make a 3D map. This idea was met with enthusiasm, except a little notice from the rest of the team: "Why would we look for another artist when we have you, Max?" And this is how Max had no choice but to start learning 3D graphics. This is one of the first attempts to draw a map:

But working hard and constantly refining their skills out artists are progressively improving the appearance of the city. This is another intermediate version:

Our artists, as well as the rest of the team, hope 3D maps will possess the same warm and cozy atmosphere as a 2D world. They experiment a lot with the textures and lighting, and in our future issues, we promise to show you the result of their work - finalized views of Memphis and other locations.
Located on the green shores of Nile, Memphis will be divided into 51 regions. Each region will possess different types of landscape and vegetation, and also will be inhabited by different animal species. Those animals will not just be there for fun, they will actively influence the daily life of the citizens. Depending on the game complexity level, chosen by the gamer, regions will also have different starter effects, such as food and sources. The development of the city will be done by regions, and players will be able to select the location of every region. The choice is limited only by one rule: new region cannot be built away from the previous buildings.
On the second map - the map of the whole Egypt, Memphis will only be a small dot, not even a region. This map will be divided into 60 regions or so. Exploration principle is basically the same as in the Predynastic Egypt, with a few new features. Exploration will start from one of 5 randomly selected regions and can be carried out in every direction. Besides, the first region and one random region will be explored for the player for free.
Is there anything else you would like to know about maps and graphics? Please don't hesitate to ask in the comments section. We really want to share with you the process of creating the game, the only problem is sometimes it's hard to select which aspect would be the most interesting. See you in the next issue!