7 Grand Steps, Step 1: What Ancients Begat

This is an interesting little game. It's made by a company that hasn't done so well, so it's unlikely there's be another game in the series, let alone another six, but it works fine as a standalone game.

How to explain it? It's a bit like a board game, but there are moving parts and this sort of mechanical

aesthetic, as though you're playing on a strange complex contraption that takes your tokens and spits out cards and stuff. You have these little people on the board, which is a wheel, and you gotta move them across using tokens and...I can't really explain it easily, but it only takes a minute or so to get the hang of it.

So the game starts in the stone age, and you play as just a random couple of people. As you play, you gain skills and then teach those skills to your offspring. As time passes you gain opportunities to move up the social ladder by doing important stuff like discovering new inventions or successfully navigating a crisis. As you do move up the ladder though, things get more complicated as you're given more responsibilities. Eventually you end up in positions of power and have to work out how you'll hold onto that power.

I don't know why I like this game, it's not like it's so much fun. But it's kind of moreish. You want to see how well your children do, and then their children, and so on. And just the way the whole game works, someone has put a lot of thought into it. The way it's all put together, they spent the time to put systems into this thing. I guess that's true for a lot of games, but this is...what am I trying to say? I guess a lot of games do the same as everyone else and introduce one or two new elements that make them unique. This game feels like originally from the ground up.

Anyway, it's a pretty cool game. Maybe not amazing, but definitely one of a kind. I give it 3/5 stars. I'm not sure it's worth the $20 price tag, but I got it at probably 75% off and felt well worth it.