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[mapacible]

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I last played Dwarf Fortress but I come back to it from time to time just to generate new worlds and check out the Legends mode and watch interesting histories of characters and megabeasts. I've always been drawn to story generator games and that includes games like Crusader Kings 2 and Rim World. These are the inspirations for the game we are making. It's called World's Bane and it's a simulation strategy game where you are a demon overlord invading procedurally generated worlds.

Instead of managing a colony or your own dynasty, I wanted to switch it up and have you watch the world from a distance and see all these stories being generated by the NPC AIs and then have the ability to manipulate things. While the end goal is to wipe out all living factions, my intention is that the most interesting part of the game is how you can intervene in all these separate character stories and cause mischief and chaos around the world. Combat is meant to be the last resort and most of the game is about the player working behind-the-scenes to start conflicts between individual characters and wars between different factions.

I'd love to hear your input about what you'd like to see in a game like this! You can check out our website here for more information: https://www.maccima.ph/

[FallacyofUrist]

First up, this is an awesome game concept.

That's also what we said to the last guy who tried this, the developer of the infamous That Which Sleeps.

Let's hope your project isn't a scam, hmmm?

[mapacible]

I found out about That Which Sleeps about a few months through our development of this game (mid-2017 I think) and it made me sad that such a similar concept was already in a much later stage than ours. Our game isn't quite as ambitious as the features promised in his Kickstarter page. I suspect there is a bit (or a lot) of over promise in that since in my experience this game is difficult to get right, because it requires a lot of AI and procedural generation, and there isnt really that much similar games to reference from.

What happened to that game kinda makes us think twice about launching on Kickstarter as most might probably be turned off due to the similarity. Might be a better idea for us to launch in Early Access instead so we can really show that the game is real, right?

[Rockeater]

Well, I'm interested, hope your game get made.

[mapacible]

Thank you! I posted here as I know a huge chunk of Dwarf Fortress players enjoy emergent storytelling so it's a good place to ask about what these types of players would like to see from a game like this. I'll be updating here from time to time about our games features to ask for input and suggestions.

In the meantime, below are some character portraits for the game's lesser demons. In World's Bane, there are seven lesser demon types based on the seven deadly sins. They serve as the player's minions. The player starts with a few and can summon more from time to time but the bulk of his followers would eventually come from recruiting the characters in the world. Here are five lesser demons:

Pride Demon
 

Sloth Demon


Envy Demon
 

Greed Demon


Lust Demon

[Xantalos]

Hmm, this actually looks kinda interesting! I'll keep an eye on this thread, I think.

One suggestion, if I may - perhaps consider giving each of the lesser demon types a different dominant color? As it is, while they are different, at a glance they all look pretty similar as far as shape and color go, so it'd probably make it easier to distinguish and remember them if the wrath demon was red, pride demon was deep purple, sloth is green or something, etc. Just a suggestion, obviously, this doesn't seem like it's going to be a fast-paced game or anything but visual distinctiveness is still a fairly important aspect of things regardless.

[mapacible]

You're right! What we actually do is tint the portraits inside the game. Although there is still a limited range of hue for the demons because we also have other races in the game (goblins, elves, humans, etc) and we want to give each of them their own racial color palette for easier identification.

It looks like this:


Though we are still tweaking the tinting so it doesn't look too obvious.

[Rockeater]

I assume that Gluttony and sloth won't end up looking the same.

[mapacible]

Yea, both Gluttony and Wrath portraits are placeholders. The Wrath portrait was the old Lust that we replaced because he wasn't good-looking enough haha.

[Xantalos]

Oooh, nice look!

[mapacible]

This is a part of a sample world map for the game. We currently use a fixed customized map for testing (so it is easy to check how a change in AI Behavior affects the game) but we are able to produce procedurally generated maps using perlin noise functions for temperature and altitude.

[Gornova]

Fantastic! I'm working on a prototype on similar concept here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169949.0 so let's be in contact!
A lot of potential in this kind of games!

[Caz]

PTW

[mapacible]

Fantastic! I'm working on a prototype on similar concept here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169949.0 so let's be in contact!
A lot of potential in this kind of games!

Yeah, I am actually surprised that this concept hasn't been done well yet. And there's a huge space for it! Even though we share a very similar premise, our gameplay seems very different as well. You can message me on twitter anytime! https://twitter.com/maccimagames

[Gornova]

Fantastic! I'm working on a prototype on similar concept here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169949.0 so let's be in contact!
A lot of potential in this kind of games!

Yeah, I am actually surprised that this concept hasn't been done well yet. And there's a huge space for it! Even though we share a very similar premise, our gameplay seems very different as well. You can message me on twitter anytime! https://twitter.com/maccimagames

Me too, a think that there is a huge space for do a great job, but as individual and team there is a big choice between do a full simulation (with no controllable behaviours for agents and a big problem on balance) and a more scripted game. Added on twitter thanks!
If you need a tester, I'm in