Empire Deluxe: The 25-years old game in Early Access
2017-12-04 - orzo
While browsing through the data for November release round-ups, I noticed a game on Steam - Empire Deluxe: Combined Edition - re-released (again) after 25 years to the crowd of ageing white-bearded "keep it simple stupid" strategists.
The game looks exactly as it did over twenty years ago, meaning... Well, if the original version resembled freeware back in its hey-day, you can imagine its visual appeal today.
Now, don't get me wrong here.
Despite the game's cheap looks, I consider Empire Deluxe to be one of the [many] all-time most important milestones in history of "grand" turn-based games, right bellow Civ 1, Warlords or your favorite Risk clone.
For what it represents, I'm perfectly fine even with the 20eu price-tag. It's been kickstarted by apx 500 people and there won't be many more newcomers that will keep it alive, so... Yeah. Niche has its high price.
But -- damn -- this game looks ugly.
The guy in charge could have spend at least a tenner on a new tile-set, or updated GUI.