Sumer, the board game/platformer hybrid developed by Studio Wumpus (and previewed by TechRaptor), is releasing on Steam Early Access on February 15th, 2017.
Sumer is a game that combines elements of a board game along with platforming games. One to four players take on the roles of Sumerian nobles who are vying for the favor of the goddess Inanna by providing the appropriate tributes at the temple. Tributes in the early game involve basic, easy-to-produce goods such as barley, but later tributes require more complex goods such as pottery or liquor that have to be put through several turns of manufacturing. Gameplay in each round takes place in real-time and resources are limited, so players have to act quickly in addition to figuring out their strategy. If you'd like to get a better understanding of the basics of the game, the dev team has a short two-minute trailer that gives you the down low:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtOVOKxgbS0
After initial Alpha development, Studio Wumpus successfully acquired additional funding for Sumer through a Kickstarter campaign in the middle of 2016. The following months have been spent polishing the game to get it ready for release on Steam. It will initially release on Early Access to gain feedback from a greater pool of users for the purposes of game balancing and tweaking. In the meantime, the dev team will be working on implementing online multiplayer. Importantly to note, the game has fully working local multiplayer support at this time.
If you'd like to snap up Sumer for yourself, it releases today on Steam Early Access for the price of $14.99 or your regional equivalent. As with many titles, the game will have a 10% discount during its launch period. If you'd like to find out a bit more about one of the people behind Sumer, you can check out our interview with Geoffrey Suthers of Studio Wumpus from November of 2015.
Does Sumer look like the sort of game you would be interested in playing? If you're interested in grabbing it, will you buy it on Early Access or will you wait for online multiplayer to be released? What other board game hybrids do you enjoy? Let us know in the comments below!
