Sapiens

Sapiens is an action-adventure and text-based game set in an open world environment and played alternatively in flip-screen and first-person perspective. One of the earliest representatives of the survival game genre, it is set in a fictionalisation of Prehistory. Developed by Didier Guillion and Olivier Guillion, it was published by Loriciel in 1986 on Thomson MO5, ported to Amstrad CPC (1986), Atari ST (1987), and DOS (1987). Myriad Online, the company created by the Guillion brothers, published a Mac OS and Microsoft Windows port in 1996, recompiled in 2017. Synopsis The game is set in 100,000 BC during the end of the Paleolithic period in Europe. It takes place in a procedurally generated open world filled with different types of flora and fauna such as savannas and tundras. Players customize a Neanderthal avatar by naming it, assigning it a gender, choosing its hairstyle and dresscode. The RPG aspect also entails customizing five parameters at game start (agility, strength, charisma, vitality, resistance), while gender defines different aptitudes. By default, the player incarnates Torgan, a hunter-gatherer warrior from the tribe of the Light-Footed. The game plot, influenced by J.-H. Rosny aîné's writings as well as The Quest for Fire, features several missions and reaches a climax when the player takes the lead of its tribe. The player hunts in unknown territories and faces neighbouring hostile tribes, hunts down cave bears and wolves, collects water from streams and healing plants. Gameplay As the game starts, Hognor, the tribe leader orders the player to gather food to feed the tribe. If they fail displaying due respect and accepting the task, the player will undergo a bastinado. Once set on their quest, the player alternates between the side-view to explore, forage, hunt and meet other characters, and the landscape view, first-person perspective, progressing through a wide scenery in order to reach the different goals set by the tribe leader. The player can take Non-player characters allies on his quest, as well as tame wild animals which serve as companions for the player and can assist them in combating enemies. Non-player characters will also task the player to rescue tribe-mates and perform other tasks which improve the village, as well as provide free crafting materials. The game also features a dynamic weather system and day-night cycle.