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Oasis (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Oasis is a computer game
for Microsoft Windows
developed
by Mind Control Software and published
by PlayFirst
in April 2005. It is a turn-based strategy
/puzzle
game set in ancient Egypt
. A version for Xbox Live Arcade
for the Xbox 360
is expected.
Oasis "has been described as Civilization
meets Minesweeper
".
Each level of Oasis consists of a single screen with a 10x10 grid of randomly-generated terrain. Initially the map is covered with fog of war
, but the player may remove the fog from tiles by clicking on them. Each click reveals a single tile and takes a turn, 85 turns are available for each level. The eponymous oasis
covers several squares of each level and lying in a random oasis tile is the obelisk
which contains the level's glyph
of power. The primary goal is to find the glyph and protect it from barbarians who attack after the 85th turn from tiles marked by blue cairn
s. To stop the barbarians from destroying the glyph the player must find cities and use them to mount a defense. If the player finds and defends 12 glyphs he or she wins the game.
Layered on top of the basic gameplay are eight scenarios. Each scenario presents a narrative about a different land and the story of a different leader rising to power. In the first scenario players assume the role of an Egyptian noble, the son of the murdered Falcon King, who wishes to rebuild the nation and disperse the fog that has plunged the nation into chaos since his father's murder. Each scenario has its own theme, and each level within a scenario is distinguished by a mix of special gameplay elements related to the theme, such as barbarian strongholds, jungles, islands, plagues, and others.
Most tiles give the player a number of followers when revealed. Followers are a resource; the player may spend them to build roads or he may send them to work in the mines. Both activities also cost a turn. Cities connected by roads gradually grow whereas followers working in mines research combat technology. Both benefits accrue over time, which encourages early investments in mines and roads. Turns can also be spent searching cities which reveals either treasures or advisors. Most treasures provide an attack bonus to the population in that city. When found, advisors pledge to join the player if enough cities survive the barbarian attack. Advisors grant bonuses to the player and substantially alter playing strategy.
With 100 tiles and just 85 turns the player cannot hope to uncover every tile. He or she knows however that the map is not entirely random. Certain features are present on every or nearly every map: the oasis, cairns, cities, the nomad camp, and mountains. There are clues to finding each feature: the oasis and cairns always appear on the edge, cities are surrounded on all eight sides by crop tiles, the nomad camp appears in the largest block of desert, mountains can be seen from 1 square away and mountain ranges are either 'U' shaped, 'S' shaped, or stretch vertically across the map. As an additional clue to finding cities, the number of cities touching a crop tile is the number of followers gained when the tile is uncovered. This sometimes results in being able to find cities in fewer clicks by solving a small Minesweeper
-like puzzle.
The central tension of the game comes from making trade offs. The player always has more avenues to improve his/her position than he/she has time and resources to pursue them, especially when it comes to spending limited turns and followers. For example, spending turns on exploration provides followers and strategic information, but it delays roads and technology which benefit from early investments. Connecting a far away city could result in net population growth, but it may take valuable time away from searching for a crucial treasure or cairn. Searching the oasis costs turns and gives no immediate value, but it boosts your score and leads to bonus levels which often result in a free glyph and advisor.
two years and five months to make. The game design was based around a "No bad click" philosophy. As one of the game's designers puts it: "A level consists of 85 carrots and one big stick. The player takes 85 turns discovering and rebuilding his or her empire, where every turn creates some kind of goodness."
by Konami
.
Reviewers agreed that the game is easy to pick up and play whilst containing depth of gameplay. Female gamer website Grrl Gamer described the game as "one part puzzle and one part strategy", Game Tunnel stated "Oasis packs a very powerful punch of both strategy and entertainment". Game Daily's reviewer disagreed, describing Oasis as "the perfect game for those times when you need to do something mindless and silly" and that there is no need to plan moves before taking them.
Website Game Tunnel's founder Russell Carroll rated the game 10 out of 10 overall, summing-up the review by stating "The game is flawlessly designed to create a wonderful experience in strategy/world-building that even those who don't really get into the genre can enjoy" and "Oasis is one of the best gaming experiences I've had this year".
Oasis received Game Tunnel's 2005 "Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" awards. The game also won the Independent Games Festival
's 2004 "Seumas McNally Grand Prize" and "Innovation in Game Design
" awards in the web/downloadable category.
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
developed
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
by Mind Control Software and published
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
by PlayFirst
PlayFirst
PlayFirst is a San Francisco-based publisher of casual games. The company’s mission is to deliver delightful games for everybody, every day. PlayFirst was founded in 2004 by industry veterans...
in April 2005. It is a turn-based strategy
God game
A god game is an artificial life game that casts the player in the position of controlling the game on a large scale, as an entity with divine/supernatural powers, as a great leader, or with no specified character , and places them in charge of a game setting containing autonomous characters to...
/puzzle
Computer puzzle game
Puzzle video games are a genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles to be solved can test many problem solving skills including logic, strategy, pattern recognition, sequence solving, and word completion....
game set in ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
. A version for Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
is expected.
Oasis "has been described as Civilization
Civilization (computer game)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy "4X"-type strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time": it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires...
meets Minesweeper
Minesweeper (computer game)
Minesweeper is a single-player video game. The object of the game is to clear an abstract minefield without detonating a mine. The game has been written for many system platforms in use today....
".
Gameplay
Fog of war
The fog of war is a term used to describe the uncertainty in situation awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign...
, but the player may remove the fog from tiles by clicking on them. Each click reveals a single tile and takes a turn, 85 turns are available for each level. The eponymous oasis
Oasis
In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
covers several squares of each level and lying in a random oasis tile is the obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
which contains the level's glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
of power. The primary goal is to find the glyph and protect it from barbarians who attack after the 85th turn from tiles marked by blue cairn
Cairn
Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...
s. To stop the barbarians from destroying the glyph the player must find cities and use them to mount a defense. If the player finds and defends 12 glyphs he or she wins the game.
Layered on top of the basic gameplay are eight scenarios. Each scenario presents a narrative about a different land and the story of a different leader rising to power. In the first scenario players assume the role of an Egyptian noble, the son of the murdered Falcon King, who wishes to rebuild the nation and disperse the fog that has plunged the nation into chaos since his father's murder. Each scenario has its own theme, and each level within a scenario is distinguished by a mix of special gameplay elements related to the theme, such as barbarian strongholds, jungles, islands, plagues, and others.
Most tiles give the player a number of followers when revealed. Followers are a resource; the player may spend them to build roads or he may send them to work in the mines. Both activities also cost a turn. Cities connected by roads gradually grow whereas followers working in mines research combat technology. Both benefits accrue over time, which encourages early investments in mines and roads. Turns can also be spent searching cities which reveals either treasures or advisors. Most treasures provide an attack bonus to the population in that city. When found, advisors pledge to join the player if enough cities survive the barbarian attack. Advisors grant bonuses to the player and substantially alter playing strategy.
With 100 tiles and just 85 turns the player cannot hope to uncover every tile. He or she knows however that the map is not entirely random. Certain features are present on every or nearly every map: the oasis, cairns, cities, the nomad camp, and mountains. There are clues to finding each feature: the oasis and cairns always appear on the edge, cities are surrounded on all eight sides by crop tiles, the nomad camp appears in the largest block of desert, mountains can be seen from 1 square away and mountain ranges are either 'U' shaped, 'S' shaped, or stretch vertically across the map. As an additional clue to finding cities, the number of cities touching a crop tile is the number of followers gained when the tile is uncovered. This sometimes results in being able to find cities in fewer clicks by solving a small Minesweeper
Minesweeper (computer game)
Minesweeper is a single-player video game. The object of the game is to clear an abstract minefield without detonating a mine. The game has been written for many system platforms in use today....
-like puzzle.
The central tension of the game comes from making trade offs. The player always has more avenues to improve his/her position than he/she has time and resources to pursue them, especially when it comes to spending limited turns and followers. For example, spending turns on exploration provides followers and strategic information, but it delays roads and technology which benefit from early investments. Connecting a far away city could result in net population growth, but it may take valuable time away from searching for a crucial treasure or cairn. Searching the oasis costs turns and gives no immediate value, but it boosts your score and leads to bonus levels which often result in a free glyph and advisor.
Development
Oasis took eight full-time developersSoftware developer
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...
two years and five months to make. The game design was based around a "No bad click" philosophy. As one of the game's designers puts it: "A level consists of 85 carrots and one big stick. The player takes 85 turns discovering and rebuilding his or her empire, where every turn creates some kind of goodness."
Reception
Oasis received largely positive reviews from the gaming press, received awards from the independent gaming community and has been ported to mobile phoneMobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
by Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
.
Reviewers agreed that the game is easy to pick up and play whilst containing depth of gameplay. Female gamer website Grrl Gamer described the game as "one part puzzle and one part strategy", Game Tunnel stated "Oasis packs a very powerful punch of both strategy and entertainment". Game Daily's reviewer disagreed, describing Oasis as "the perfect game for those times when you need to do something mindless and silly" and that there is no need to plan moves before taking them.
Website Game Tunnel's founder Russell Carroll rated the game 10 out of 10 overall, summing-up the review by stating "The game is flawlessly designed to create a wonderful experience in strategy/world-building that even those who don't really get into the genre can enjoy" and "Oasis is one of the best gaming experiences I've had this year".
Oasis received Game Tunnel's 2005 "Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" awards. The game also won the Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
's 2004 "Seumas McNally Grand Prize" and "Innovation in Game Design
Game design
Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...
" awards in the web/downloadable category.