So as I was checking the Steam store the other night, I noticed a new casual indie game had been published. Having had a lot of good experiences with indie games throughout the past two years, I decided to check out its page. The game is called 7 Grand Steps, and I was immediately intrigued by its unique atmosphere. After watching the trailer and reading through the description, my interest only grew, and for $13.49 (normally $15, but it was on sale for 10% off) I decided it was worth looking into more.
The game is set up in the style of a board game. The board is circular, and you only ever see a quarter of it at a time. You control up to two pawns at a time, a husband and wife that you can spend tokens to move around. Each token has a symbol on it and moves the chosen pawn to the next available tile with that symbol when you put it in the slot below the pawn's picture. If you ever need more tokens, you can take the ingot located at the top of the sidebar and place it in either of your pawns' slots. Depending on their skills, they will have a higher or lower chance to make a given token. And it's important to keep a healthy stock of tokens, as at the other end of the board wait four hungry crocodiles determined to put a quick end to your family's history. Every time you complete a turn (when all of your pawns have used up their action), the entire board rotates, usually by one tile, though I've seen it do two or three towards the end of a "round", bringing you closer to their snapping jaws of death.
This brings up another mechanic I should mention: the ability to have children who can continue your dynasty into the next generation once you die. One of the game's major goals is to avoid having your family completely wiped out, and whether it is by an unfortunate rendezvous with the carnivorous reptiles, a heroic deed (I'll explain later), or simply reaching the end of a round (which happens when the wheel has made one complete rotation), at some point your character(s) will pass away. Before that happens, if you want to continue the game, you must select one of your children (hopefully you've had at least one) and send them through a Rite of Passage into adulthood. Once you do, the board resets at the beginning of the track and your new character's pawn is placed randomly on one of the tiles. Your new character's skills are based on how many of each tile type you gave that character while they were still a child. You inherit some portion of your family's prior "token wealth" and your first objective is to find a mate. Once you do so the game plays out the same as before, although you can always try to raise your family's social position, which brings me to what could be described as the game's other major goal...
Creating a legend. Scattered about the board are beads that you can collect by moving onto the tile they reside on. These beads have different values and collecting enough of them gives your family a chance to do something amazing. There are three types of legend goals that you can choose from: discovery, heroic, and social. A discovery legend leads to your family discovering a new innovation, which completely changes one of the tiles on the board and immediately gives you ten tokens with the new symbol. A heroic legend triggers an event that gives your main character the chance to do something, well, heroic. I only tried this once in my game, and I ended up leading a rebellion of potters demanding higher prices for their urns. I was ultimately killed by the city guard, but I ended up earning 60 legend points and the next goal I chose had its achievement cost reduced by that amount, which was actually extremely useful as it allowed me to make a discovery within the next few turns.
A social legend requires the most points, and for good reason: it raises your entire family's status in society, which is represented by unlocking an entirely new track to move on. You start the game on the smallest track, closest to the center, and achieving a social legend moves you to the next higher track. The main advantage here is that you have more tiles to move on, which means more chances for beads to further enhance your dynasty's story. Should you ever reach the outermost track, you will have a chance to take part in ruling the realm. I've yet to get there, as I am still but an artisan; however, based on the rest of the game I expect it to be no less interesting.
Based on my first few hours with the game I can already say I feel like I'm getting my money's worth. There have been a few bugs, the most major one being when the music suddenly stopped and the tokens and event text began glitching, but a simple quit and restart fixed this problem for the rest of my session. The events so far have been flavorful, and your character's responses are adapted based on their personality. You get a chance to take part in guiding one family's narrative throughout the course of human history, through fortune and misfortune and the defining events of the ages. For anyone looking for a casual simulator with board game and strategy elements, I give this game two thumbs up.
-Arcthos
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