Eagle Games’ board game War! Age of Imperialism is making its debut as a computer game this week, thanks to the efforts of Donohoe Digital LLC. The game will be available for online purchase through the Eagle Games e-store, and will also be available from brick and mortar retailers.
War! Age of Imperialism is a strategy game in which players build empires, explore, expand their empire’s economy, development technology, engage in diplomacy and tactical battles during the Age of Imperialism (1830 – 1900). Donohoe Digital President Doug Donohoe likens War! Age of Imperialism to the classic board game Risk, “but with a multi-faceted game system focusing not just on army strength, but your economy, technology and navy strengths.”
What’s more, Donohoe used a Mac to develop the game. “Development of the game was primarily done on an Dual 1GHZ G4 with a Cinema Studio Display. We used Java specifically so we could support Mac out of the box,” he told MacCentral.
Donohoe bills War! Age of Imperialism as having “a faithful implementation of the board game’s advanced ruleset.” It can be played against the computer or in “Hot Seat” mode with up to 8 human players as well. You can also play it online in an “asynchronous” manner, according to the developers, where each player performs their moves and players are notified by e-mail that it’s they’re turn — a central server helps to facilitate online play as well.
War! Age of Imperialism is available for pre-order for US$34.99. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.2.3 with the Java 1.4.1 update installed; 500MHz or faster processor; 128MB or more RAM; 75MB hard disk space; 800×600 resolution with 16-bit color.