Mousechief’s 7 Grand Steps is an intricate mix of strategy board game and family-management simulation—with the look of an antique coin-op fortune-telling machine—that tasks players with guiding a family, generation by generation, through 5,000 years of human history. That family will contain farmers, doctors, empresses, and priests, all of whom fall in love, have children, make friends, and fight with their siblings. And all of them will die—by war, starvation, or pestilence. During the Sack of Rome, marauding Goths slaughtered Faustine, our most successful family member, at the height of her power in the Imperial Senate.
All of the game’s action is governed by tokens. They allow players to move along the circular game board in search of beads, but they’re also used to educate any children the family has.…