A game about western civilization. Only, this time, it's personal...

Uplift a family lineage of laborers, to artisans, to nobility, to kings, to heights born from an adventure of free will.

Guide generation upon generation to thrive across the ages. Falter, and a designated heir may end without descendants. Will siblings have the skill and resources necessary to bypass the lost branch, or will your entire tree wither and die?

Simple, absorbing gameplay reveals a metaphor for raising families, as civilization changes. Stories emerge from how you play the game. Interact with ancient lives of struggle, accomplishment, discovery, romance, conflict, and above all, humanity.

Sophistication* in a casual game.

To date, casual games have been wrapped in fairy tales and comic books, because few understood that games can be fine art. Not to lessen the greatness of many games, literary interactive storytelling is difficult to make accessible and engaging. Perhaps, as Hemingway helped break literature out of stuffy tomes, a casual game will emerge to bring fine art to a ready audience.

In arcada mia story emerges from play like monuments emerging from bricks which emerged from clay and straw. Small stories build large ones. Your decisions alter bits of story. Choose their path like a mason adding bricks to the monument of your family history. In turn, stories reward or challenge. They influence game tactics.

*Full disclosure: game not exclusively sophisticated, because life is more livable with a dash of mischief.

arcada mia - Begetting Around: 2011.

Gameplay

arcada mia is the very first Back and Forth Tactics computer game. Spend tokens to move forward. To get tokens, move backwards. It’s that simple, a simplicity which masks its depth. Every turn, the optimal use of tokens can change tremendously.

In the greater scheme, you must juggle competition and cooperation with peers in your social caste. Raising children strains resources. Courtship is a race. And stories of the age challenge and reward, but keep aware. Not every reward is worth the price, nor is every downturn disaster.

Metaphor

Life is a wheel. Four tracks around the wheel represent four social castes. Each generation of family travels around only once. They may climb, and they may fall, but survival has no caste. Make the best of every life. (and beware of crocodiles!)

Legends

Gain points in the core game to win legends. Three kinds of legends can bolster your family's abilities: Social Advancement tells how your family climbed higher on the wheel. Heroic Challenges are risky short adventures with big payoffs.  Discoveries provide powerful advantages over competitors.

Story

Legends are bound together by a feast of stories presented in bite sized tastes. Romance, rites of passage, and simple tales of everyday life will immerse you in the historic lives of laborers, artisans, high caste professionals, and ultimately rulers. You decide their destinies. You reap the riches and the sorrows.

GUIDE A FAMILY LEGEND THROUGH THE AGES

© 2010 Keith Nemitz. All rights reserved.