Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile Demo

City-building games are usually designed on the idea that you must work as hard as you can in order to construct an efficient establishment and make more money from the people living in it, in order to build more and expand the city. Thus, the entire game revolves around whether you have enough money to continue building, with little regard to the actual citizens and their happiness.

Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile has another vision on the subject and provides you with an entirely different perspective over the genre, in the form of a city-builder centered around the people inhabiting it, rather than the other way around. Thus, there is no gold or money to talk about, only food, which acts as a way to reward those who are better educated, work harder, or come from a wealthier family.

Naturally, the events take place in ancient Egypt, near the Nile river, where civilization has everything it requires in order to advance. The Nile is vital to the entire plot, since the floods it brings on every year are the only way your citizens are able to harvest crops and assure the supply of food for the entire city, avoiding starvation. There are, however, more ways for them to earn a living, such as selling hand-made merchandise in exchange for food.

Whenever the city produces enough bricks, you can build new structures and provide them with more places to study, relax or practice their religion, such as schools and temples. It is also in your power to issue edicts, which are basically laws that must be obeyed by everyone and they aim to rapidly change the mood of the citizens, whether through free food ratios, or no taxes for a month.

Since the game uses a 3D engine to render the environments, that means you can freely zoom, pan and rotate the camera, in order to view your city from every possible angle and not miss any of the action. A lot of work went into the detailed buildings that form the cities, as well as the characters that roam the streets and work the fields.

In the end, Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile stands out from the crowd in a very positive way, especially thanks to its very interesting mechanics that work like a charm in almost every situation. Thus, in case you are curious about a different take on the genre, the game at hand offers you plenty of reasons to do so.