About Brunelleschi vol. 1

Aesop Games is proud to announce our first offering, the all-new and improved Brunelleschi:Age of Architects. As an independent company we've had only our efforts to pour into this product, and it's certainly gone through a variety of incarnations over the years, but persistence seems to have won out in the end and we're finally able to offer a workable product to players.

We hope you'll enjoy the game, and in an effort to ensure that players are prepared for the gameplay of Brunelleschi, I've compiled some information that may be helpful to you in deciding whether or not to play during the 'Bootstrap Beta'.

1. Brunelleschi is a Low-Graphics, Content Focused Game.

While it's not a text game, and certainly is a 'real time' experience for the most part, Brunelleschi is not jam-packed with graphics. You'll find plenty of soft UI elements and lots of customization is available for the 'look and feel', overall this isn't some graphics festival. The game is deep, with potentially years worth of contents hidden in its mechanics. You won't find everything in the first day, and there's certainly no way a single character can explore all the content available. If you are an old school gamer and don't mind a bit of math, this is the game for you. If you prefer flashy graphics, then you might want to give us some time to build up our company and then we'll be able to offer you the hack and slash immediacy that you crave, backed up with some totally new calculations and mechanics.

2. Brunelleschi is in Beta, and was developed with no Money.

That's right, not a dollar. The 2 of us have built this up from an idea, and the original publisher failed without producing a usable product. My programmer buddy and I have been working on this with a fervor for years, on a budget of nothing! So, what you see right now is the game at its absolute infancy. If you join in, play for a while, and possibly even spend a few dollars, you'll see this thing grow and change and you'll be right in the middle of it. 

3. It's ultimately a social game, and it needs a jump-start from more technically gifted players. 

More than anything currently on the market, Brunelleschi is a game about joining with other players to collaborate on the construction of a City, and to some extent a Society. The combination of RPG elements, political simulation, macro and micro economics, as well as a totally new type of teamwork-focused warfare are pretty essentially tied to group dynamics. You won't get a lot done at first, the game can be very slow to get going. It can take a few days to build up a character worth playing, and at first you may wonder at the point. The game depends on Intelligent players to create settlements and establish a market. The first to master the complex mechanics has a chance at gaining unique rank, and there are 5 'top of the heap' positions that can only be held by the most successfully ambitious of each 'Lordship' class. This leads to the last and most compelling point...

4. The game has new and totally unexplored mechanics. Those who join early have the best chance to become 'Pope' or 'Khan'.

With player romance, privatization of city economies, massive diplomacy webs, a huge and complex market, as well as a totally unusual warfare system, the sooner you start learning the more powerful you'll ultimately be. There's a nearly endless variety to the competition and advancement offered within the game, and the complexity of the game's Fealty system makes forum communication an essential part of the game. Roleplayers and powermongers as well as statisticians and 'min-maxers' will find features specifically designed for their playstyles, and ultimately it will be up to the players to demonstrate which tactics are the most effective.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, it's completely free of charge at BruneGame.com.