by J. Andrew Carmody

Created on: June 16, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Score 2 out of 5

In Empire of the Gods, a puzzle game from Lonely Troops, you take the role of the leader of a small tribe of people in Ancient Egypt. Your goal is to go from a small village to a large empire along the Nile River. Instead of using traditional resource gathering or turn-based strategy, you instead accomplish your goals, such as building a temple, building a warfleet, or constructing a capitol city for your followers by clicking on a group of cards to try and build up certain amounts of four key elements, Faith, Power, Wealth, and Life. The main cards that you will use in the game are a series of base cards that have costs and benefits to them. For example, you might click on a card that will cost you 1 life point, but give you 2 wealth points. Also, if you have enough points in a certain area, you will be able to click on a special bonus card that might cost you 5 power, but give you the benefit of each section having one new base card. Also throughout the level, you can earn fame points, can either use on a different set of bonus cards, or save to upgrade your character in between levels. The upgrades you can purchase with fame points are things like starting out the game with more Wealth, Power, Life and Faith, more base cards, more bonus cards, or more time. Time in the game is basically the number of turns that you have to accomplish your goal. If you run out of turns before completing what you set out to do, the game is over, and you'll have to try again.

There really isn't all that much to Empire of the Gods, graphically speaking. Each level consists of a picture in the background surrounded by your Life, Wealth, Power, and Faith meters, as well as your Base and Bonus cards. Clicking on a base card will cause a stream of light to move from one attribute to another. Occasionally, you will see a slightly more impressive flash, when you use one of your fame cards, but that's about it. The background also doesn't change until the end of the level when you complete the goal.

As far as the game's sound goes, there's really not all that much to that either. As far as gameplay goes, you'll hear mostly clicks and whooshes. The background music also leaves a lot to be desired. It's just generic "Egyptian" music playing over and over again, and it can get very monotonous.

Based on what I've seen from the demo, I really can't see myself paying the 23 dollars Lonely Troops is asking for the game. Maybe if there were more going on in the background, and the game had some variety to its music and sound effects I'd consider it. But as it is, I really can't recommend the game to anyone other than a hardcore fan of puzzle games, and even then there are games that you can play for much less money.

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