Emerge: Cities of the Apocalypse Demo

Turn-based video games are quite rare nowadays, mainly because gamers are looking for more action, unless you count CCGs. However, there are still some classics that have the potential to attract huge crowds with every new release, such as Civilization, or X-COM. Hence, as long as the gameplay mechanics are complex enough to allow great replayability, there should be plenty of fans ready to give it a try.

Emerge: Cities of the Apocalypse is not necessarily an original concept, given the fact that it borrows most of its ideas from other games, but the combination is pretty much unique. As such, this is a Civilization-like game in which you have to fight against zombies and survive for as long as possible. There are multiple resources to find and use, and weapons are obviously important as well.

There is not much of a story to keep you engaged, so you’ll kind of have to make it up ad-hoc. On the other hand, there’s really no need for a deep narrative anyway, given the fact that it’s all about survival and conquest. Hence, although you can explore every subdivision of the map whenever you want, you need both action points and infrastructure points in order to occupy an area.

As mentioned before, there are multiple resources you can gather, some of which are harder to come by than others. Money is generated automatically each turn, depending on your economic research level, but crystals can be found by strolling around the map. In fact, you can also lose resources by taking strolls, although the random events that cause this are pretty silly at the moment.

It’s all about action points, as it usually is in every turn-based strategy game out there. You start with a handful of them every turn, and you have to decide what to use them on. Various research branches are included as well, depending on whether you want to focus on defense, economy or technology.

In the end, Emerge: Cities of the Apocalypse is not quite there yet, but it certainly has the spark needed to ignite a decent following. Hence, as long as the gameplay is refined and polished, the game should do just fine.