(4) Well, in the end you are getting three maps in one. Another idea I found appealing to try out. I hope it turned out fun to look at and play.

Build time: around 6 days (1 day for the canyon river, 2 days for the Egyptian water palace, 3 days for the Japanese mountains)

Tip: Should you like to try out the map, you can download it via the Hidden Through Time main menu:
-> online -> online maps -> click on "all" button
-> under Search map: enter " AEons Rift in Time "
and then play it.

(3) I may be quite apparent to the more observant player that the map does not contain a single human. Why is that? With the high level of detail, three themes, and the relatively large map, I actually used up the object count budget the editor allows for right to the very last object. I.e. I simply cannot add anything more to the map. To me the world objects are more important and I also prefer adding animals, so I prioritized those. So there was nothing left in the budget for humans.

(2) The canyon river was done in an afternoon, my first time using these river objects. The Egyptian water palace took very much longer to make interesting and unique. IMO, it turned out nicely enough. On the Japanese side, I always wanted to use the "mountain" objects and stone stairs to create mountain-top shrines of sorts. And to make it plausible on how to scale these mountains and get to the top. One is dedicated to the fox deity, another is a grave mountain, the third one a Zen-like bamboo mound. I am quite proud on how all that turned out, especially since I have not seen a map with any of these ideas.

(1) Having started off with the, for me at the time, new and experimental Japanese themed map AEons Japonesque , I always felt that this rich theme could be explored in much more detail (certainly more than in AEons Botanic Garden ). At the same time I had the idea to mix several themes into one map. Here I was thinking the Egyptian theme with the Japanese one, but how could I make that "plausible"? I then had the idea to create a river splitting the map in two distinct areas, using the Wild West theme canyon object set, and then suggesting that the angled gateway artefacts connect an Egyptian palace with Japanese mountains. Thus the "Rift in Time" map name. Anyway, that is the way the layout for the map came into existence.