Originally published at: http://statelyplay.com/2017/09/05/my-first-game-of-eight-minute-empire-lasted-20-minutes-confusion-reigns/
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac •
If you’re not familiar with board game designer Ryan Laukat, you should be. He’s designed some real gems with themes ranging from battling ancient titans to conquering the stars. That’s not all. In fact, Ryan is a true renaissance man, he’s a board game publisher, designer, and artist all in one. Each game from Red Raven is a complete Ryan Laukat creation, which is kind of cool. As of yet, however, none of Red Raven’s games have gone digital. That ended this morning when Eight-Minute Empire landed on the App Store.
Eight-Minute Empire is a quick and easy area control game with a 4X feel. Sure, it doesn’t have that epic feel of bigger 4X titles like Eclipse or Through the Ages, but for a 15-20 minute game, it gets the job done. The game has players bidding for turn order and then drafting cards which contain a resource and an action. The actions help you recruit more troops or move about the board, but sets of resources gain you points at the end of the game. Do you take that action you really need, or that resource that matches one you already have 2 or 3 of?
The digital version is from our friends at Acram Digital who you might remember from their conversion of Martin Wallace’s Steam: Rails to Riches. That was a pretty great port, so I have high expectations for this one, albeit in a much lighter package. The game features three levels of AI for solo play as well as both pass-and-play and online multiplayer. Yes, the online multiplayer is asynchronous! All the official rules are included, as well as some additional things you won’t find in the base game at your local FLGS such as a Europe map and more. For those of us playing for the first time, the app also has a full set of rules as well as a play-through tutorial.
Eight-Minute Empire is available for iOS Universal and Android with a PC/Mac version landing on Steam this coming weekend.
https://youtu.be/vtg-w4oQ8HQ