The great thing about PC games is that they can be used to educate people about history. While the details might be inaccurate at times, what's important is that gamers are subconsciously educated of how things were before. Though their mission is to finish the game, they also get a free crash course on the way of life decades or centuries ago. This mix of game and history is one of the strong suits of 7 Grand Steps.

The game looks like a board game but there is more into it. It requires strategy for you have to consider that each move will bring a different fate. However, the dynamics are not hard for beginners to pick up. Essentially, a player must move game characters around a wheel by using different tokens that carry different symbols. These tokens can give the character skills that range from ancient (masonry) to the more advanced (Mathematics).

After every turn, the wheels in the game board rotate and spending tokens will keep the player moving forward. Otherwise, the character will be the meal of the crocodiles once it rolls off screen. Therefore, you have to wise in using your tokens so that you will either stay put or move back. That objective seems simple. However, 7 Grand Steps is beyond that because you don't have to look after the welfare of just one person. Rather, you will be controlling a couple who will have the opportunity to bear a child when they occupy the same spot.

When a child is produced, you can use the tokens to raise them well. Lineage is vital in this game for the parents will eventually perish and the children must carry on. Thus, the child has a better survival rate is he has been raised well. Also, the tokens that have been given to him are the ones that he will also likely to produce for future generations. As the game goes on, you must also collect legend points to boost the clan's chances of being a legend in discovery, social advancement or heroics.

Social advancement legends can move up in social status which makes them move around a larger wheel. Upon reaching the outermost rung, there will be a mini-game that will determine what the character does in every turn. This gives the player a major advantage in gameplay but it is an optional game that not everyone may experience. Meanwhile, the legends in discovery can upgrade symbols depending on the current game era.

Due to the game's several intricacies, one can get lost while playing. It is hard to get your rhythm going once the game starts and it might take hours before you can either get more turns or move along the board that is relatively static and aesthetically monotonous. Likewise, the game can confuse players as to whether it is a story-driven or objective-based game. There are also times when fate kicks in and decisions are either improbable or far-flung. These things can erase the success that you have achieved throughout the game.

Since it spans several generations, the game might be completed in about ten hours and you don't get to share it with anyone because it does not have a multiplayer option. Once you complete it, you will get a preview of what could be a second instalment of the game. But despite the complexity of the way things may go, 7 Great Steps is a great reminder of how the human race managed to survive.