Theseus: Journey to Athens
Antiquity Studio · 2019 · RPG, Indie, Adventure, Strategy, CRPG
PC
Positive94% · 16
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About Theseus: Journey to Athens
Theseus: Journey to Athens is an independently developed Adventure/RPG game set in Ancient Greece. The story is faithful to the ancient source material, and the art and music is uniquely crafted for the classical theme. Gameplay consists of exploring the ancient world, speaking with mythological figures, and engaging in turn-based combat. If you are a fan of indie titles or old-school gaming, then this is for you.
Who is Theseus?
Theseus is an ancient hero who is perhaps most famous for slaying the minotaur. Long before he killed that beast, however, Theseus was just a fatherless boy growing up in the small town of Troezen. His grandfather was King Pittheus, but his mother Aethra was an unmarried lady. As a child, Theseus was told that his father was Poseidon. However, after reaching adulthood, his mother told him a very different story.
That is where the game begins: Aethra has just revealed to you that she has a secret message from your true father. Not only is he a foreign king, but he is without an heir and facing a deadly rebellion! The people who would seize power from your father are also eager to kill his possible children. Your life is therefore in danger – you must make your way to your father’s side, or else risk dying at the hands of your father’s enemies.
How does it play?
The game consists of three main gameplay mechanics:
Exploration: At the exploration level, the player travels throughout Greece and interacts with numerous historical and mythological characters. Invariably, the player will get caught up in their troubles and find himself engaged in deadly quests.
Choice & Consequence: When the player has become involved in a quest-line, the game switches styles. Detailed text and historical sketches are used to explain events to the player, who then decides how to respond. The choices the player makes will radically change the story. These choices have real consequences, and there are multiple different endings.
Turn-Based Combat: Ancient people were no stranger to violence, so combat is a very real possibility. The game will switch to a top-down, grid-based combat system, where the player and any allies will face off against a variety of opponents. Items may grant Theseus special abilities, and allies come with their own skills that may help secure victory.
Theseus: Journey to Athens combines these three distinct mechanics into one cohesive whole. The player ultimately has the power to define Theseus: is he a violent rogue who attacks anyone who gets in his way, or is he a silver-tongued diplomat who wins hearts and minds?
Perhaps the answer is in the middle – you will have to decide.
Summary of Key Features:
- Lead the ancient hero Theseus as he seeks out his father. The story is heavily rooted in classical texts like Pausanias' Guide to Greece, Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, and shorter works and fragments such as those of Bacchylides.
- Over 20 unique locations to explore. Explore multiple locations in the Peloponnesos, Megarid, and Attica. Each location is populated by a cast of historical and mythological characters.
- Classical-themed artwork created by Klaudia Jankowska
- Unique music composed by Michael Landers.
The ancient sources tell many different tales about Theseus and his journey to Athens. Now, it is your turn to step into Theseus' sandals. What will you seek to achieve, and how will you conduct yourself as an ancient prince?
Who is Theseus?
Theseus is an ancient hero who is perhaps most famous for slaying the minotaur. Long before he killed that beast, however, Theseus was just a fatherless boy growing up in the small town of Troezen. His grandfather was King Pittheus, but his mother Aethra was an unmarried lady. As a child, Theseus was told that his father was Poseidon. However, after reaching adulthood, his mother told him a very different story.
That is where the game begins: Aethra has just revealed to you that she has a secret message from your true father. Not only is he a foreign king, but he is without an heir and facing a deadly rebellion! The people who would seize power from your father are also eager to kill his possible children. Your life is therefore in danger – you must make your way to your father’s side, or else risk dying at the hands of your father’s enemies.
How does it play?
The game consists of three main gameplay mechanics:
Exploration: At the exploration level, the player travels throughout Greece and interacts with numerous historical and mythological characters. Invariably, the player will get caught up in their troubles and find himself engaged in deadly quests.
Choice & Consequence: When the player has become involved in a quest-line, the game switches styles. Detailed text and historical sketches are used to explain events to the player, who then decides how to respond. The choices the player makes will radically change the story. These choices have real consequences, and there are multiple different endings.
Turn-Based Combat: Ancient people were no stranger to violence, so combat is a very real possibility. The game will switch to a top-down, grid-based combat system, where the player and any allies will face off against a variety of opponents. Items may grant Theseus special abilities, and allies come with their own skills that may help secure victory.
Theseus: Journey to Athens combines these three distinct mechanics into one cohesive whole. The player ultimately has the power to define Theseus: is he a violent rogue who attacks anyone who gets in his way, or is he a silver-tongued diplomat who wins hearts and minds?
Perhaps the answer is in the middle – you will have to decide.
Summary of Key Features:
- Lead the ancient hero Theseus as he seeks out his father. The story is heavily rooted in classical texts like Pausanias' Guide to Greece, Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, and shorter works and fragments such as those of Bacchylides.
- Over 20 unique locations to explore. Explore multiple locations in the Peloponnesos, Megarid, and Attica. Each location is populated by a cast of historical and mythological characters.
- Classical-themed artwork created by Klaudia Jankowska
- Unique music composed by Michael Landers.
The ancient sources tell many different tales about Theseus and his journey to Athens. Now, it is your turn to step into Theseus' sandals. What will you seek to achieve, and how will you conduct yourself as an ancient prince?
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
This is the kind of game that teaches you the valuable lesson that old people on the road are much more dangerous than entire legions of assorted wild beasts, bandits and rebel soldiers. It can be finished in like 90 minutes though and is rather rough around the edges (go figure, it was made by like one guy working with a 486 in a garage), so it's better to pick it up on a sale if you're curious.6 found this helpful
Nice small game that draws inspiration from Ancient Greek mythology and literature. You play as the hero Theseus, who after just having reached manhood sets on a road to Athens to reunite with his alleged father, and face trials that surface along the way. Gameplay is a combination of text adventure and RPG, where you are given options how to solve certain situations (heavily influenced by your character’s stats); RPG part is rather symbolic, there is not much in the ways how to improve your party or equipment, and only very few abilities so combat is pretty much reduced to a turn-based game of attrition. On the technical side the game is a solid craft, with nicely renditioned screens in top-down view, and quite good and thematic music. Controls feel a bit crude and the game is relatively short, but with multiple story branchings there is good amount of replayability. Overall the game feels like an edutainment piece and is available at a good price, so if you like myths and stories from ancient Greece, definitely give it a go.5 found this helpful
This game is a nice little romp along the journey of the greek hero Theseus to the city of Athens. Although seemingly a labor of love, it’s a bit rough around the edges. [b]The Good:[/b] [list] [*]Graphics are surprisingly charming and above average for a game of this scale. None of the “closed” buildings can be entered, sadly. [*]Music also seems to be on point, all of the tracks adding to the general feel of the game. [*]Choices & consequences are the game’s meat, shaping the plot by the options you pick in story events, and determining the routes you take towards the ending (I believe there’s three different ones aside from the game overs). [*]Based on a criminally underused setting for RPGs, it’s historically accurate, even in its portraits. [/list] [b]The Bad:[/b] [list] [*]There’s only 2 savegames to use, which normally wouldn’t be such a fuss if the game progress was straightforward. However, as most options branch or exclude other options in the future, it makes it cumbersome and makes me doubt if such an implementation was due to technical limitations or to artificially “encourage” multiple replays. This is mostly a pet peeve during the initial moments, because since th…2 found this helpful
A very short, very simple choose your own adventure style RPG for those who are interested in those kind of games and/or Greek mythology and history. The baseline RPG elements and combat are dead simple but where the game shines is in the freedom it gives the player to make choices that effect how the game will play out. That being said, all of the results are rather brief like the game itself. At least in the path I chose I enjoyed the road-trip style vignettes, very comfy. I just wish it wasn't so rushed. Overall it's definitely worth the cost of entry.1 found this helpful
good
A cheap short game with a lot of heart and a surprising amount of choices, it's clearly an amateur production but I had a lot of fun with it. It seems there is a decent amount of replayability too, as I pledged myself to my father Poseidon and took over Athens, deposing Athena as patroness of the city. This path skips the last road to Athens you can take, which meant I missed a bunch of sidequests there. I appreciate the courage to allow content to be skipped like that, and the shortness of the game means I can easliy replay it. I like the music as it fits the setting, but it sometimes doesn't repeat, which meant I fought in battles that would start with some music, but quickly became silent. I assume this was an error but it kinda sucks as you lose everything music would add to the mostly sound effectless game. Some of the early writing is stilted and workmanlike, but it improves as you play. There are story sections like in Pillars of Eternity where the writing is longer and more descriptive and you look at some nice art and make choices. I liked those a lot. The combat is very simple and generally functional once you figure it out, but it is definitely the weakest aspect of …
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