Sailing Toward Osiris

Pharaoh is dead and his funerary barge sails slowly down the Nile toward his tomb where his spirit will stand before the judgement of Osiris.

Pharaoh had no offspring so tradition holds that the governors of the land be tasked with building monuments to Pharaoh’s glory so that Osiris will favor his spirit in the afterlife. Accordingly, Pharaoh’s successor will be the governor who builds the greatest tribute to the late king.

Resources and laborers are limited, the gods are capricious, and time is short; the memorials must be finished before the barge reaches the temple of Osiris at Men-nefer.

Sailing Toward Osiris is a euro-style game with worker placement, resources management, project completion, and no direct conflict. Down-time is kept to a minimum via a single action, round-and-round turn structure that emphasizes timing decisions and subtle strategies.

The game takes place over four "seasons" with the movement of Pharaoh's barge tracking the game's progress. Each season, after players draw workers from a communal bag, play begins with each player taking a series of one-action turns from a list of 10 possible actions:

1. Play a worker to harvest resources

2. Play a worker to a city for cards