Act I: The Tomb
You start the game in your tomb. But you’re still a mummy and can’t do anything. Then you’ll see a Sem priest perform some kind of ritual on you. The priest touches your mouth, your eyes, your ears, your nose. When you see popups that say things like “Do you want Ptah to open your mouth?” just select yes. Otherwise, you’d be stuck in the coffin forever.
After your senses are restored, the game will prompt you for your name. Just answer correctly. Some players lose their memory when they die. So look around your tomb. Check the walls, the coffin, or the wrappings. You should find your name easily. Don’t forget it again, because in later levels, some demons will try to trick you by calling you a different name. If you respond, you lose the game.
Now check your inventory. You should find a strategy guide (complete with drawings), some food and water, and your heart. Make sure the Heart Scarab amulet is still there. Without it, your heart will rat you out and you’ll die in the final act.
The game is also full of enemies who want to steal or eat your heart. So cast a protection spell on it. If you notice the buff timer running out, cast the spell again. Then do the same thing for your other body parts. This is to make sure your body is made whole again, just like Osiris’s. The in-game tutorial ends here.
Now walk outside the tomb and you should see a river. You need to cross it to complete Act I. This is the first time you’ll see an NPC. A ferryman is standing by the river. Click on him to start the conversation. Say you are a follower of Osiris, then say you know the name of the ferryman. He is Mahaf, the Face-Behind. Now he will let you board the boat.
Then the surprise: the boat itself asks you for its name. Actually, every single part of the boat (the oar, the steering oar, all the individual planks) will ask you. So you’d better act like you’re their friend. “Looking good! Michelle, Audrey, Janice, Zoe, Ayden, Jayden, Brayden…” Don’t skip this and try to swim. You’ll drown.
The ferryman finally takes you across the river. You have now entered Act II.
Acts II & III: The Gates and the Pylons
We see this pattern over and over in game development. The team spent too much time polishing the beginning of the game, then they fell behind schedule and were forced to rush through the later parts. When you named the boat parts in Act I, the mechanic felt new and novel. And now the developers just reuse the mechanic for all of Acts II and III. This is my least favorite part of the game.
Anyway, Act II has 7 gates, and they all follow the same format. Each is guarded by a god, a gatekeeper, and a herald, and you just name all 3 correctly to pass. Then Act III has 21 pylons, and each pylon has a guardian god. The pylon gods have even longer names, like “Lady of Trembling, High of Walls, Sovereign of Destruction, Who Guides the Words Which Silence the Storm”. Yikes.
In Acts II and III, you need to speak the names of 42 guardians. The number 42 is based on the Osiris myth. Set cut Osiris into 42 pieces and scattered them all around Egypt. Egypt had 42 districts. One district had one piece of Osiris. You’ll keep seeing 42 show up in the game. The developers must be Douglas Adams fans.
I think most players ragequit here. But we may never know, because none of them can leave a bad review.
Act IV: The Night Journey
Every day, the sun god Ra dies at sunset. Then he enters the afterlife, passes through 12 caverns (1 hour per cavern), and is reborn at dawn. In Act IV, you’re doing an escort mission on Ra’s boat. Players usually hate escort missions, but don’t worry. Ra is quite beefy and hits hard.
The first hour is a cutscene. The sun has just set. You hop on the boat and are greeted by Ra and other minor gods. In the second hour, you sail by the land of the blessed dead. Players who completed the game end up here. Take this chance to familiarize yourself with the boat and the crew. In the third hour, Ra begins to reanimate the dead on the banks. Here you’re supposed to cast spells to buff Ra’s power.
In the fourth hour, you enter the desert of Sokar. There’s no light in the desert. You can’t see anything. Not even Ra. Spirits will try to lure you off the boat. They’ll speak in the voice of your family or call you by fake names. Remember your real name from the tutorial? If you respond, you’re off the boat and gone. In the fifth hour, you reach the realm of Sokar, and snakes start attacking the boat. Here you should use serpent protection spells, both for buffing yourself and for fending off the snakes.
The sixth hour is also a cutscene. At midnight, Ra and Osiris briefly merge into one being. You can go AFK, but I suggest you watch the cutscene and sing hymns to Ra and Osiris. After the cutscene, you get the first boss fight. The boss is Apophis, the great serpent of chaos. Everyone on the boat fights. So get your attack spells ready and start doing the rotation.
After the Apophis fight, chaos serpents will try to board the boat. They wear human clothes and disguise themselves as friendly passengers. But if you use the True Sight spell on them, they will run away. Then in the ninth hour, Ra will give everyone bread and beer. Use this window to charge up and prepare for the final stretch.
In the tenth hour, the drowned dead will plead and try to board the boat. Note that they’re not hostile, so don’t attack them. If you mouse over their heads, you’ll see a chat bubble icon. Right-click to acknowledge their suffering and calm the waters. In the eleventh hour, fire starts to appear everywhere. The guiltier you are, the more fire will surround you. The fire protection spell helps, but it’s mostly about dodging area-of-effect attacks.
Finally, it’s dawn. The boat enters the body of the Serpent of Renewal, and Ra is reborn. You say goodbye to Ra and move on to Act V.
Act V: The Open World
So far, the acts have been scripted content. But Act V is a randomly generated map where you’re supposed to find the Hall of Judgement yourself. There are no distinct levels, and the monster encounters are not in order.
There are crocodiles that steal your magic, and you can use Counterspell against them. There are various snake pits scattered across the map, but you already know how to fight snakes from Act IV. There are scorpions that you can make friendly by praying to the goddess Selket. And there’s a beetle that transforms you into other creatures, which you can counter using the Polymorph Control spell to control what you become.
There are demons that trap you with their nets, which you can escape by naming the parts (same deal as the boat). There are demons that steal your food, and you ward them off with the Not-Eating-Poop spell. Really. Then there are demons that make you walk upside down. You must reorient yourself part by part. Finally, there are executioners looking for guilty souls running away from the Hall of Judgement. Tell them you are not fleeing, you are searching for the hall.
Act VI: The Hall of Ma'at
Congratulations. You’ve arrived at the final act. There are 42 judges sitting around the hall. You must know their names and tell each one about a sin you have not committed. The sins range from easy (“haven’t robbed anyone”, “haven’t killed anyone”, “haven’t slept with someone else’s partner”) to hard (“haven’t lost my temper without good reason”, “haven’t held grudges”, “haven’t rushed to judgment”) to nigh impossible (“haven’t masturbated”).
After that comes the famous Weighing of the Heart round. There’s a great scale at the center of the hall. Anubis will place your heart on the scale, and place the feather of Ma'at on the other side. If your heart is lighter than the feather, you win the game. Otherwise, the croc-lion-hippo monster Ammit will eat your heart, and it’s game over.
Remember the Heart Scarab in your inventory? Hope you didn’t lose it. And hope it actually works. The funny thing is, we don’t know if it actually works or not. It might just be a placebo.
Endgame: The Field of Reeds
Let’s say you’ve passed the test. You are now Maa-kheru, the Justified. Osiris sends you to the paradise. Turns out the paradise is just farmland. If your family buried shabti figures with you, the shabtis will come alive and do the actual farming for you. If you have no shabtis, you farm your own fields forever. Crap, did I tell you the Egyptian afterlife is pay-to-win?