Saturday 9 February, 2008

Game Play
So now I have been online and read about a few of the uses of the buildings for which I had no idea how to use, and it was very helpful. I also talked to some of my house mates about how I am supposed to keep getting food if I can't farm, and they pointed out that there was an arrow to another page once I made it past the stone age which probably would have been helpful when I first started playing. I kinda expected the menu to fill up before there were arrows telling me that there were more pages, oh well. The game is still challenging but I was able to get much farther along than I ever had. I really think that watching my friends play every once in a while will help me figure out some better strategies and allocation of resources.

Design
The design of the game is simple enough. The characters are all small enough that they don't require too much detail to get the image across. I kinda have a problem with the jaggedness of the movements but I guess thats what I get with the original version of the game, still fun though. I think it was a very good choice of theme because there are quite a few possibilities in the characters and outcomes depending on who you are and what route you decide to go with, whether it be more sea or land or force or religion (kind of an odd aspect I thought). The game really keeps you interacting with it until you attack because you are providing your entire civilization with instructions. When you finally attack, you are pretty much just throwing all of your guys into the other city (although you can organize however you like).

It was a good entry and is going in the right direction, but you really need to concentrate on what makes you like the certain aspects of the game, try to concentrate on the why. What makes this game different in your mind and why?