To start this review off: I do not think I am in the target demographic of this game. Iām not sure what that demographic is - maybe board game aficionados - but I do not think that this was a game that, even if done well, was going to appeal to me. Because of that, I did not finish it; as far as I know, there were no drastic shifts in gameplay later in the game, but obviously that will shape my opinion.
With that said, thoughts below the cut.
I have tried several times to get into this game - not because it is any sort of game that appeals deeply to me, but because the fact that theĀ ā7ā³ in its name puts it at the top of my library in steam, so I always see it first when looking for a game to play.Ā
The basic concept of the game is such: you control a family, progressing through the slow passage of human history. The passage of time is represented by the slow turning of a wheel, and you move your characters forward on the wheel by spending certain tokens. You want to keep your character from falling too far behind, because there are otherĀ āplayersā on the wheel who will snatch currency that is used to progress technology. You need to make more tokens in order to get ahead, but the act of making tokens often sends you behind, so there is strategy involved in picking what you do and when.
I must admit, I like the theme of the game - watching the course of human history change over many, many generations of a family. The execution, however, failed to grip me. The gameplay is simplistic - pick which tokens to spend with which characters or choose to make more tokens. Allow time to pass, watch what the other āplayersā do, then repeat. Occasionally, a text-based event will pop up, or you will have to woo a member of the opposite sex in order to have a spouse for your next generation. There are not many different options to take in the game, which makes it feel repetitive after a handful of generations.Ā
That isnāt to say the gameplay itself is easy - there is definitely a lot of strategy involved with choosing how many children to have, how to divide resources among those children, and when to make sacrifices or take risks. However, the game moves at a snailās pace, and it never feels like there is much reward to making these decisions. There is the occasional piece of story that can be interesting, but those story pieces were not nearly engaging enough to keep me playing.
I can see where this would have some appeal to those who enjoy board games - itās easy to imagine playing a board game version of this, especially if it were actually a multiplayer experience and the other āplayersā were controlled by other people you were actually competing against. That would probably be a great experience!Ā
Unfortunately, in its current form, I was sadly unable to get into 7 Grand Steps whatsoever.Ā
I got this game in a humble bundle and thought it would be a fun, cheesy thing to play to scratch the detective mystery itch that Iāve been having recently. From the title, I wasnāt expecting much: I figured poor graphics, cheesy dialogue, a point and click play style, and maybe a good mystery or two. I figured that if a fantastic Sherlock Holmes video game had been made, Iād have already heard about it.
The first thing I noticed about the game was that the production value was much, much higher than I was expecting, with cinematic cut scenes and a Sherlock Holmes that could have walked out of a modern TV adaptation of the show. From there, it was a series of ups and downs as I bumbled my way through the five mysteries this game has to offer.
The thing that really grabbed me (and probably the thing that kept me playing) was the deductions system. Once you have gained enough evidence, you can find connections between two different facts of the case. Then, you can draw a conclusion based on those facts - sometimes, the conclusion is drawn for you, and sometimes you have to pick between one of two different options. These connections are all put on a big deduction map (which is supposed to represent neurons in the brain) and depending on which conclusions you come to for which connections, you can often come to multiple conclusions for the same case. To me, this is a great system of nudging players to the correct answer, and it was immensely satisfying watching several conclusions come together to point out somebody as a culprit.Ā
However, a mechanic like this needs some solid mysteries to back it up, and this game does not deliver on that promise. I only felt confident in my conclusion for the first case. In later cases, when I guiltily googled the answers to make sure I had properly identified the right person, I was met with numerous confused players who didnāt understand how you were supposed to reason it was one culprit over another. Nobody actually managed to trace the logic of the conclusions in a way that explained the mystery in a satisfying way to me. Iām fine with a mystery stumping me as long as I can go back and see all of the obvious clues I missed along the way, but this game tries so hard to keep the players guessing that theyāre still guessing, even after the mystery isĀ āsolved.ā
Another interesting mechanic was the ability toĀ āprofileā people by zooming in on parts of their appearance and drawing conclusions. While this was fun and interesting, it unfortunately had very little impact on gameplay - even when I came up with anĀ āimprecise character profile,ā nothing seemed to change. I would have loved to see this elaborated upon.
That said, there were still many moments of fun to be had in the game, and while I had a hard time coming to final conclusions, I did enjoy pursuing most of the cases. There were some fun mechanics within certain cases that I enjoyed, such as piecing together the timing of events in a major traffic accident, or creating a distraction to slip past a guard. Unfortunately, for as many as those moments as there were, there were also moments with truly frustrating environmental puzzles or stealth sections. Thankfully, the game gives you the opportunity to skip certain sections. For the most part, I tried to tough it out, but I have to admit that near the end of the game, I saw a stealth section coming up and immediately hit the skip button. Certain sections (such as a bizarre temple sequence) also overstay their welcome.
The finalĀ āmysteryā of the game is, unfortunately, very underwhelming. It concludes a subplot that has been developing throughout the entire game, but the writing and characterization was simply not strong enough for me to care about the characters or what they were going through. That, added with the fact that it hardly makes use of the gameās most intriguing mechanics, made it an underwhelming note to finish on.Ā
On the whole, I would not say I regretted my time with this game, especially as I got it in a bundle (meaning it did not cost me much money). There were frustrating moments, but I still enjoyed seeing what would come next, and I find myself interested in looking into the other games in the series. Iām not sure I could possibly recommend buying this game at its current Steam price tag of nearly $50 (I got roughly 10 hours of gameplay out of it), but it might be worth it if it goes on sale and you just need something new to scratch that mystery game itch with.
Overall Score: 6/10
You can buy Sherlock Holmes: The Devilās Daughter for $49.99 on Steam.
The goal of the game 10,000,000 is right there in the title: get 10,000,000 points. You play the role of a pixelated prisoner (pictured above) who must quest through a dungeon in order to escape. Each run of the dungeon is scored; if you can reach a score of 10,000,000 points, then you can escape.Ā
Each run functions like a dungeon crawler mixed with a tile matching game. You will encounter monsters; to fight those monsters, you must match either sword or staff tiles in order to cast an attack. You will also encounter locked chests and doors; in order to conquer these, you must match key tiles together in order to break locks. You want to make the appropriate matches quickly as well. Every monster or lock that you encounter pushes you towards the left side of the screen, while every victory pushes you a little further to the right. If you hit the left side of the screen, then itās game over. You can also gain items that will help you open chests, fight off monsters, or just push you further to the right so that you have more time to think.
There is also an upgrade system in place. During your dungeon adventures, you can collect gold, experience, wood, and stone. The wood and stone can be used to build and level up the rooms in which you can get upgrades, while gold and experience can be used to actually purchase those upgrades.Ā
What happens you you finally reach the highly vaunted 10,000,000 points? I wonāt say exactly, but it is a little underwhelming. Then again, the game gives you no reason to expect anything dramatic, and it doesnāt take long enough to reach that ending that you will feel cheated. Just donāt go in expecting to have earned something grand.
This game was originally released for mobile platforms, and it shows. It is designed to have short runs that only last a couple of minutes; 10,000,000 is not the kind of game that is supposed to be sat down and enjoyed for multiple hours. That means it is not the best fit for the PC platform, because it was never meant to be.
Still, the game is fun, even on PC.Ā I often found myself plugging in a couple of runs in while I listened to a podcast or listened to music. After six hours of play and reaching the goal of 10,000,000 points, I canāt say that I see myself opening this one up again, but I definitely donāt feel as though I wasted my time or my money.Ā
This blog is a side project Iāve been considering in various forms for a year or two. I have a Steam library thatās gotten out of control due to various Steam sales and Humble Bundles to the point where I have only played 50% of the games I own for more than an hour, and I havenāt even touchedĀ 15% of them. So rather than wasting my money and buying more games (though letās face it, I know Iām going to do that anyways), this project is a chance to encourage myself to give some of those titles I dropped or never tried another chance.
This project is also a way for me to articulate what it is that I enjoy about games, as I find that the older I get, the more I truly and deeply care about video games as an art form. Itās a way for me to flex those writing muscles in a way that I donāt usually explore. Itās a way for me to share recommendations if I do find a game that I really enjoy that other people may not have heard of. And more than anything, I guess I just really like self-driven projects like this, so itās a chance for me to just have fun, too.
This is how things will work: For now, Iām planning to work alphabetically through my Steam library, play enough of a game to get a good feel for it (or, depending on length, complete it) and then write up a review for it. Iāll give it a score and everything, because goodness knows that scores are vital to gaming. Plus, it means maybe I can have some fun with statistics and averages once Iāve posted enough reviews to do statistics and averages with.
There is no update schedule or hard and fast rules here. Like I said, Iāll try to play games in alphabetical order, but I may decide to jump around as things catch my interest. Iām not going to rush myself through a game to try and post a review on time - Iām going to enjoy it and give myself time to articulate my thoughts.Ā
So yeah, thatās the gist! The first review will be for the gameĀ ā10,000,000,ā³ which will hopefully go up sometime within the next couple of days! Iāll talk to you then.
