Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an impossibly ambitious game, attempting to summarize the whole of human evolution into the span of a few hours—and succeeding to a surprising degree.
Help your early ancestors tame a savage landscape and evolve towards modern humans.Family TreeI've been very slow getting this review up… but there's a reason for that and the reason I'm putting it up now is a bookend for my experience with Ancestors:...
Initial bewilderment gives way to fascination as you understand what Ancestors is trying to do, but fiddly controls and a lack of hand-holding leads to frustration.
So, what gives? Why the long wait and how come we find ourselves flung so far back into the past? It struck me, at first, as the game design equivalent of Thoreau, when he went into the woods. ‘I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential...
Science aside, this made me think about how terrifying those early days must have been for those plucky hominids, the jungle crowded all around, survival seeming very unlikely indeed. Ancestors isn't really about the neurons and the connections that got us here, then. I'd argue that at its clearest it's about the empathy that is possible because of where all those neurons and connections are today. This weird, difficult, silly game is, deep down, actually sort of memorable.
Utilizing our natural instincts for discovery is truly the most ingenious aspect of the game, as it rewards us for problem solving in ways that already come naturally to us. It’s such a gratifying experience to see our hominids start out with no understanding of the world, to then become fairly self-sustaining creatures thanks to education and discovery. More than anything, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey shows us what amazing creatures we truly are and how far we’ve come as a species. Understanding our past is the gateway to our future.
If Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is proof of anything, it's that life is better with a bit of evolution behind it. Sure, 2019 has its problems, but at least I'm not crawling through a swamp on broken limbs, guts in a mess because of some...
Guiding a clan of primates through generations as they evolve certainly makes for a unique experience, and there are times when Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey comes together. But a lack of guidance on basic gameplay mechanics, as well as some clumsy...
So far, I have put about six hours total into the game between both sessions. I am very excited to learn how to weild a weapon to kill predators, and to explore more into the jungle. This has been a really unique and challenging experience, and I am...