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[Gazrick]

Thought this might be of interest to some people here - the launch of a new title that promises to offer several unique mechanics and systems to the Grand Strategy genre.

In brief - the player takes on the role of a malevolent god, of which there are multiple to choose from with different powers and abilities, that start off weak but slowly awaken and grow in power to consume the world. The world of course fights this threat the more it learns of it, and will attempt to hinder the evil schemes of the player before a climactic battle to seal the deity away for another millennia. The player has access to human pawns, so called agents, who support it and carry out it's bidding while it's power grows.

I have played both of the developer's previous games - Shadows Behind the Throne 1 and 2, and whilst I enjoyed them both for what they were, the demo of this game is a cut above and a significant improvement in many areas.

The developer seems to have been inspired by other games, some that were never realised, so this is very exciting for me as a fan of those games (That Which Sleeps in particular here).

Anyway, if this sounds interesting, check out the following post on Steam -

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1511830/announcements/detail/2999944978208387934

[ndkid]

Ah, Shadows Behind the Throne 3... it may not be the That Which Sleeps that we want, but it's the That Which Sleeps that we need. :-D

[The_Explorer]

I could never play the 2nd game. I could have refunded it, but hoped it would work one day. But no matter how small I made the map, each time I saved the game or it autosaved would crash and be broken

and it never got fixed STILL because...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1511830/discussions/1/5452154443646136808/

This is recent and that guy has same problem. Except at least he could play longer than me...but still...

[Gazrick]

I could never play the 2nd game. I could have refunded it, but hoped it would work one day. But no matter how small I made the map, each time I saved the game or it autosaved would crash and be broken

and it never got fixed STILL because...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1511830/discussions/1/5452154443646136808/

This is recent and that guy has same problem. Except at least he could play longer than me...but still...

Did you report your issues to the developer? He's been pretty active at trying to quash bugs from my experience.

Hopefully this game will run better on your machine, you can test it right now, for free, because he's released a demo

[The_Explorer]

I could never play the 2nd game. I could have refunded it, but hoped it would work one day. But no matter how small I made the map, each time I saved the game or it autosaved would crash and be broken

and it never got fixed STILL because...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1511830/discussions/1/5452154443646136808/

This is recent and that guy has same problem. Except at least he could play longer than me...but still...

Did you report your issues to the developer? He's been pretty active at trying to quash bugs from my experience.

Hopefully this game will run better on your machine, you can test it right now, for free, because he's released a demo

Yeah, I did report it and problem never went away. Though I do know he was/is pretty communicative. Though at the time at least, was kinda a common issue for some reason as others reported it too. Think it came down to the PC or something. Maybe my CPU is just too old. But yeah, I'll try the demo and see how that plays

[Kagus]

So, I ended up buying Shadows 2 just yesterday, which is when I found out that development was going to halt on that in favor of developing this.

Couldn't quite figure out how Shadows 2 wanted to be played, but thankfully didn't seem to get any major game-breaking issues (other than just how infuriatingly opaque the mechanics are). Gave the demo to this a try.

And... It seems to take 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. UI is still a complete mess, and in some ways it's even more of one. Agent-Agent combat somehow became even more obtuse, and it's even moved away from pawns being particularly expendable by adding leveling, stats, and unique one-time agents that can't be brought back if they're killed (when they inevitably earn the ire of not just individual investigators hunting their trail, but every random yahoo who's never met them before in a 20-mile radius).


Gah... Again, just like with 2, I really want to like it. It's just a bit of a learning cliff, and the clunky opacity of the mechanics is just not helping matters

[Cthulhu]

I laughed when I first saw the screenshots, just at how much it looks like That Which Sleeps now.  I played through the demo.  Every iteration the game has gotten a bit closer to being a proper game, but at the moment it's still a curiosity.  He claimed he's been approached by people, so at some point he might put together a team or otherwise get more eyes on it, but for now, still just that weird thing that popped up after that which sleeps died.

[Criptfeind]

It's somewhat unsettling to me that these games that essentially look and feel like demos or early access are being sold and then abandoned for a sequel so quickly, but eh maybe someday a good game will pop outa this. It's pretty interesting to watch anyway.

[ndkid]

It's somewhat unsettling to me that these games that essentially look and feel like demos or early access are being sold and then abandoned for a sequel so quickly, but eh maybe someday a good game will pop outa this. It's pretty interesting to watch anyway.

Especially when you're a solo developer who's trying to make any money from the activity, because the gaming public has been willing to start giving people money in early access, there's an economic argument for generating a bunch of EA titles over trying to survive through the economic cliff that you hit when you're 50 updates into one project, the trickle of money in is slowing down, and you're getting burned out. Rare is the solo developer who is well-off enough to just make games for fun and single-minded enough to keep plugging away at one project. Steve W. of Aurora is the exception, not the rule.

[nenjin]

See also: Illwinter and Dominions. Even successful devs have to pull the sequel stuff to keep paying the bills.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I had a lot of fun with Shadows 2. Finnicky as it is, I remember several complered playthroughs where I won and several where I lost.  The politics was awkward but the feeling of a continent falling to a zombie and deepone horde was great.

I will definitely get this when it comes out—granted I also suffered the crash bug, but eventually learned that the culprit is custom map sizes. 33x33 works perfect for me until late game, when too much stuff gets involved and the bug crops up.

[Kagus]

Just tried running the demo again, this time trying to rush all the bells and whistles required in order to actually desecrate a holy site so that I could summon the baronness.

Many restarts later, I managed to get a setup that had a coven just a couple stops away from a holy site. Finagle finagle finagle, and I had an infiltrated holy site with >66% shadow! And a snazzy hierophant to redecorate it! So I set him to work, waited the requisite 7 turns for it to finish, and...


...nothing happened. There was no discernible change to the settlement itself, other than that I could no longer do the "desecrate holy site" challenge. Baronness still said that there were no valid locations to spawn, and I had plenty of agent cap and recruitment points.

So, yeah. Either that's a big goof, or we were never intended to actually get the baronness at this point in development. Just look, no touch.


Finally started getting more of a hang for Shadows 2, and got the Politician achievement. I have no idea how I'm gonna get the world under ice achievement, Winter's Scythe just seems ridiculously finicky to get working.

EDIT: Got it. Ended up being a relatively short game. Winter's Scythe is bizarre, it's more of an end goal than a means to get what you want done. I think Deep Ones might actually have served me better than MoN, due to their really nice ability to spread untraceable shadow. Get a few broken souls in there and lay down the frost blasts.

[Gazrick]

Just tried running the demo again, this time trying to rush all the bells and whistles required in order to actually desecrate a holy site so that I could summon the baronness.

Many restarts later, I managed to get a setup that had a coven just a couple stops away from a holy site. Finagle finagle finagle, and I had an infiltrated holy site with >66% shadow! And a snazzy hierophant to redecorate it! So I set him to work, waited the requisite 7 turns for it to finish, and...


...nothing happened. There was no discernible change to the settlement itself, other than that I could no longer do the "desecrate holy site" challenge. Baronness still said that there were no valid locations to spawn, and I had plenty of agent cap and recruitment points.

So, yeah. Either that's a big goof, or we were never intended to actually get the baronness at this point in development. Just look, no touch.

Could be a goof, but do note the order that you spawn an agent in. It's select desecrated Holy site then select to spawn baroness. I. That order.

In terms of art and other changes to settlements, they'll come as development proceeds I'm sure. Some are already in, but I don't think there's a specific thing for a desecrated Holy site yet.

[Kagus]

It was my understanding that selecting Create Agent brings up the overlay that shows you valid locations you could select for spawning that agent, and once you'd selected one you could confirm and it would be created. That overlay showed no valid sites to select.

Which isn't quite as odd as the one-off time when I tried spawning a hierophant, and it said "No valid sites: Needs any location". Apparently I couldn't find the "Any" location.

[EuchreJack]

Now I'm curious when I bought Shadows Behind the Throne 2, and how much I paid for it.

Used to be a time where players might get a discount when they buy the sequel if they have already bought the first game.  I haven't seen that in years.
Kinda wish they'd bring that back for this title.  Might take the sting out of buying into the game, not realizing a sequel was coming out soonish.

Other than than, this is good news.  The game this dev is trying to make is great, they have great ideas, but they've been limited by the engine.  A fresh start should produce a decent game.