Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Brunelleschi: Age of Architects’

Review Fix chats with Angel Parker, Community Manager of Aesop Games, who discusses the deep social and political strategy game, “Brunelleschi: Age of Architects” and tell us exactly why the 1500s-based gameplay is uber sexy.

Review Fix: What games inspired this one?

Angel Parker: Watching a documentary on Filippo Brunelleschi: the most renowned architect of the world to date. The designer was hit with inspiration when he noticed that there were similarities between the Florentine Renaissance and the financial crisis of 2008/2009. The designer committed to include elements of economics and civilian government. They want to bring medieval architecture to life by incorporating Virtual Reality, so we could all experience the beauty and magnificence of the medieval era while having a taste of history in the process.

Brunelleschi draws inspiration from a large number of other games, including ‘The Guild II’, ‘Heroes of Might and Magic’, ‘Simcity’, ‘Civilization’, ‘Master of Magic’, ‘Exitilus’, ‘Legend of the Red Dragon’, ‘Barren Realms Elite’, ‘Trade Wars 2002’, ‘eRepublik’, ‘Simcountry’, and ‘Tropico’ to name just a few.

Review Fix: Let’s talk about the art. What inspired that?

Parker: The medieval era was one of the most beautiful, including stained glass, mosaics, sculptures, and illuminated manuscripts. They all have higher survival rates compared to fresco wall paintings, so even after 700+ years, we can still view and enjoy the creative art and buildings.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Parker: Development has been a great deal of fun, and has occupied the majority of our lives for the last four years at least. We’ve given our time and effort to this project and hope that players will enjoy exploring and conquering it as much as we’ve enjoyed building it for them.

Review Fix: What’s sexy about the 1500s?

Parker: Secret Lovers, Dueling in the Streets, and all the rituals of Courtly Love! Brune’s a ‘Multiplayer Dating Sim’ with more customization in terms of Character Romance than nearly any other game in the world! You can conduct ‘Secret Rendezvous’ with paramours, form Families via Political Marriage, and even ‘Flirt’ and “Preen’ to increase your social effectiveness.

From buying a woman dinner to opening a door for her, many of today’s courting rituals are rooted in medieval chivalry. During medieval times, the importance of love in a relationship emerged as a reaction to arranged marriages, but was still not considered a prerequisite in matrimonial decisions. Suitors wooed their intended with serenades and flowery poetry, following the lead of lovelorn characters on stage and in verse. Chastity and honor were highly regarded virtues. In 1228, it is said by many that women first gained the right to propose marriage in Scotland, a legal right that then slowly spread through Europe.

In our game, you can propose marriages and gain 40% of your spouse’s Importance. It also creates a “family” if you want, or merge two family groups if there’s enough space.

Review Fix: Who will enjoy this game the most?

Parker: Anyone who loves to build up their own settlement or helping other people. It is a player-driven economy that has multiple play styles, so anyone from the casual gamer to the committed gamer will enjoy the game. We also have a 3D client in open-alpha and are working on Oculus VR to bring the game to life and add UI depth.

Review Fix: With all the competition on the mobile market and in the indies now, how difficult was it for you guys to try and make something that stood out?

Parker: We started Brune in 2009 and have always thought that the game would be very different from other things available. The majority of the time we’ve been trying to make the new concepts (like Bonds, Multi-Stage Scenario Warfare, and the RPG / Grand Strategy crossover) more accessible by adding features that are common to the genre.

Since a lot of these features are adapted from another, larger project, it’s always just been a question of how many of the ‘New’ strategy mechanics to import from that project, and how many ‘Standard’ mechanics to include for existing players in the City Builder and Military Strategy genres. The Beta Testers have been instrumental in this process, and we’re very lucky to have had such an involved player base during the early ‘Open Alpha’ of the game helping to refine concepts.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this game?

Parker: This game is the ‘Dwarf Fortress’ of social and political strategy games. The mechanics are already popping up in other games, and players who want to get the jump on the next wave of Social Strategy Dating Sims should take a look immediately! If you want to see a game that was designed to appeal to as many players as possible, while being balanced on a knife-edge of mathematical precision, this one will cost you precisely nothing to experience.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Parker: We hope Brunelleschi is remembered as a game that adapted to a large variety of playstyles, and as something that really brought new ideas to Multiplayer Gaming as a whole. Since the game is automatically ‘Open Sourced’ at certain dates after major releases and updates, we hope it will also be remembered as a project intended for and ultimately owned by Gamers themselves, with a focus on the Players and their long-term enjoyment.

Ideally this would be an MMO where people make lifelong connections, and can check in on ten years down the road to find it still alive and generating new relationships and stories.

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Parker: Our goal is to step our 3D client and phone app out of alpha and into beta, then release it to the public. We also hope to include iPhones and tablets. From there, we will work on introducing Virtual Reality to our 3D client.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Parker: Getting the word out for our game, and having players give feedback, criticism and bug reports so we can make the game enjoyable and smooth as possible.

Review Fix: Anything else you want to say?

Parker: Our game is available to play anytime, anywhere with internet at https://BruneGame.com. We will always be free-to-play and never pay-to-win. We will try to be as responsive as possible if anyone has questions, comments or concerns. You can visit our Facebook also, which has our updates and information: Facebook.com/BruneGame or Twitter: @AgeOfArchitects.