Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile Wrap Report, Part 2

There is a striking amount of consistency in this division. For example, the sequel crowd tends to reject the interface. They complain that it's not giving them the information they need, or that they specifically want big spreadsheets of information, but this is because they're looking for information that simply does not exist or is irrelevant in Children of the Nile. They think the AI isn't functioning because resources such as food are not distributed in the artificial way they were in older city-building games. When these folks identify a component of the game that has no direct corollary in prior city-building games, such as prestige, they assert that it does not fit. And they tend to find the graphics "dated" or sometimes complain that they're not detailed enough (as in a 2D game). Often, they'll say the game is too complicated because they are trying to understand in detail how all of its many intricate systems work (which is what you normally have to do with artificial rule-based strategy games), and this is impossible because the organic systems are very complex.

we could demo the game for six hours... and we didn't run out of things to talk about. Some games you can finish playing in six hours.

But in Children of the Nile, you have fun playing and watching, not thinking about the rules and trying to exploit them. The systems are intricate precisely so the game can deliver this flexible, unbreakable gameplay experience. I can't tell you how many times this particular type of reviewer has said something like, "I'm having a ton of fun, but I don't really know what's happening." Yes you do!! You just think you don't because you think there is more to understand, which there isn't.

By contrast, those who manage to view the game for what it is are very impressed with the user interface, and overjoyed that all the information they need is one or less than one click away. They love the organic and realistic nature of the resource distribution system. They love that this is the first game where they don't have to quit and reload a saved game when they make a "mistake", because there is no benefit to that. They love to settle in for a deep, engrossing experience where they can even become hypnotized by the ant farm-like behavior of the population, and the sensation of watching their societies grow. They find the graphics beautiful, warm and atmospheric. They love the fact that, just as viewing a real society, they don't know everything that is going on everywhere all the time. On the surface, that may sound like something that should cause concern, but really, the experience in the end is one of incredible depth because no matter how deeply you dig, you'll never hit bottom. You just need to try to achieve your goals, you don't need to know every piece of data the game is shuffling around.

Looking Ahead I can't say precisely what lies ahead for Children of the Nile and the Immortal Cities series. Of course, we'd love to continue making games in the series, but there are a lot of other things we'd like to do as well. These decisions won't be made for a little while yet.

Personal Thoughts Creating Children of the Nile has been a deeply personal experience for me. In so many ways, the game has far exceeded my expectations. Simply put, I did not believe it was possible to do some of the things we've done in this game, or just to make a game like this work - just work, let alone be fun to play. One thing Jeff Fiske and I always found notable was how we could demo the game for six hours! Six hours and we didn't run out of things to talk about. Some games you can finish playing in six hours.

With many of our past games we experienced difficulty showing them, because they don't look as much fun on the surface as say an action game. It's sort of like watching someone read a book. It doesn't look fun, because the fun is all happening in the huge amount of stuff that is going on in the player's / reader's mind. But Children of the Nile pushed that so far that, in fact, we found we could often demo the game without playing at all, but simply building a big city and walking the viewer through it. Now, when you're doing that to something you've painstakingly built yourself, something you've raised like a child, the experience is very deeply satisfying. I think Children of the Nile comes closer to delivering the unique gameplay experience and realizing the unique potential of single player PC gaming than any game I know.

Even after years of making and looking at this game, I will still find myself stopping in mid-sentence while walking through the testing area or something because I see an amazing looking city on someone's monitor out of the corner of my eye and I just have to burst out, "wow, that's incredible!"

Jeff Fiske: Even after playing the game for hundreds of hours, it can still surprise me when I look at it and say, "Wow, that looks really cool with the sun setting on my pyramids, and people bustling to get home before nightfall- that looks like a real place." I think that is the single greatest achievement of the game. It really can look and feel like a real place and you get to call the shots.

I also enjoy opening the world map and making strategic decisions about how to build my city in relation to expanding Egypt's influence throughout the known world.

One last thing - the game as a whole is a relaxing escape to old school PC gaming, done with a modern visual overhaul, complete to walking your street in first person. That is what we think PC gaming offers that no other medium does- an opportunity to explore and experience a place, fantastic or real, that you otherwise will never experience in a lifetime.

[Since introducing them in November of 2003 to offer post-release viewpoints from the respective teams, it has been our pleasure to publish Wrap Reports on a number of other titles. Lists of the previous ones on both RPG Vault and Action Vault may be found on the next page. - Ed.]