Shadows Behind the Throne 2
Save/Load Bugfixing
The second is a much larger problem, and prevents some users from ever saving. For some reason, Unity does not perform file operations on those machines in the way which it does on others. This issue is a major one, and frustratingly we have never been able to replicate it on any machine we tested it on. We actually believed this issue to have been resolved, since we can't tell which patches were successful (as we can't reproduce the bug locally), which is why it stopped being prioritised.
It has recently come to my attention that it is not fixed, and clearly needs to be. If you are affected by this bug you have my sincere apologies, and assurances that I am still working to correct it. As of yet, we have no clue what might be causing it.
Hypotheses have variously been: non-english-language user names being handled, excessively long user-names causing file-paths lengths to be exceeded in APPDATA, 32 bit OSes, Windows 7, Windows 8, anti-virus interactions, admin access settings. We'll keep trying to evaluate, but for now do not have enough data to know even roughly what is causing the problem, so fixing it remains a process of randomly changing stuff and seeing if the bug reports stop coming in.
Thanks for your patience, apologies again.
Shadows of Forbidden Gods
There has been a recurring theme in user feedback which can't be resolved, and it is a core issue with the game itself. Game mechanics are currently split into two connected systems: the politics and the agents. The agents are by far the more popular of the two, and many users have expressed confusion and frustration with the political half of the game. The political mechanics require a lot of streamlining to allow the agent-based gameplay to flourish and develop. Because the politics was developed first, it is the foundation of all NPC decision-making. To improve the game, we have to make the hard decision to completely rebuild the core mechanics. That will allow us to keep what works, but continue development with a new foundation which will give us the opportunity to deliver on the gameplay elements the community enjoys. Our goal is to keep enough politics to remain interesting without undermining the agent gameplay. The things we've learned developing Shadows 2 have equipped us to deliver a more satisfying game.
A second benefit of starting a new project is resolving legal issues that impact development. Shadows 2 is open-source, and that prevents us from using 3rd party assets under most licenses. By restarting the project under a closed-source framework we gain the ability to use 3rd party UI graphics and art to deliver a far more polished product. That, and a greater use of classic public domain art, will give the game a renaissance feel, making the screens more appealing visually (with less bright yellow text, far more pictures of 17th century Prague).
I've been approached by actual professionals in the game development and marketing fields who have been giving me advice regarding the project going forward, and to them I am eternally grateful. While it's unfortunate to lose some of the progress made on Shadows 2 by starting new development, much of the code and engineering can be recycled. I believe that the improvements in Shadows of Forbidden Gods (Shadows 3) will demonstrate that this unexpected sequel is our strongest option to create the best possible intrigue-based apocalypse simulator.
A playable demo (of the first 200 turns only) is available for download on Itch already, so you can try it out yourselves to see how the new sequel both looks and plays. URL here: https://bobbytwohands.itch.io/shadows-of-forbidden-gods-demo
I'll be posting more information, and am planning to get a first Early-Access release by end of 2021. After that, a long and promising roadmap points towards a bright (or should it be dark?) future for the Shadows series! I will miss working on Shadows 2, it was a great experience and I enjoyed it greatly. That experience has taught me much of what I'll need to make Shadows of Forbidden Gods an exceptional sequel.
======Major changes=======
-Agents are the core focus of this new game.
You cannot directly play as a political noble, providing a far greater degree of freedom when influencing their AI. You can change the nobles' preferences using your agents, allowing you to make a ruler warlike, cowardly, cruel, or ambitious. How you influence characters will determine how politics develop as a result (assuming you wish to deal in the messy world of human affairs).
-Visible AI reasoning.
The game is now designed to try to create a clearer picture of WHY an agent/NPC is acting the way they are. Many players disliked when they didn't know when or why a society or an investigator would act the way they did. Now all ruler and hero decisions are given visible indicators of their motivations, including the actions they may take in the future, showing you why an NPC is doing what they are in full. This should allow better planning and more player agency when manipulating the AI.
-RPG-like agents.
Agents and heroes now have XP and level up, gaining traits as they do. Agent vs Hero battles are more developed, and will be fleshed out further with minions to recruit and outcomes to choose from after victory (or defeat). Are you mercilessly brutal, or magnanamous and cunning?
-Inspiration from other games.
Shadows of Forbidden Gods draws inspiration from the approach to AI politics in games like Civilization 4, especially how information is displayed and how NPC rulers make decisions regarding the player. We intend to capture how enjoyable AI diplomacy was in that game compared to other approaches.
-Unique Gods.
The player will not be limited to two abstract 'names' for the darkness, you now take on the role of a singular dark being. The demo shows one of the first to be introduced, "She Who Will Feast", a serpent which grows to devour the world. Each Elder God has a very unique playstyle, with strengths and weaknesses that add interesting flavor to each playthrough.
-Unique agents.
As development continues we will add a number of unique agents with their own unlock requirements and abilities. Your forces are not just disposable pawns on a board, each has a unique role in your strategy. You will need to avoid losing assets which cannot be replaced.
====Shadows 2=======
Shadows 2 sadly will receive one last bugfix and a few content additions, then be discontinued, to allow work to progress on the next edition of the game. Not an easy choice to make, but a necessary one. Thanks for all the support, advice and suggestions along the way. It's been a crazy journey from posting a one-month project on a forum a few years ago to now considering trying to make a professional, polished and community-feedback-lead version of Shadows which we can enjoy for years to come.
Version 19: Events
Other than that, this version has a whole load of bugfixes (see below for full list) which hopefully will catch a number of the annoying issues people have been encountering.
We made faster progress than we expected in getting events working, my co-author really did solid work, with a system we hope will be extremely flexible and robust, and allow all manner of exciting side-adventures for the agents of evil to partake in. Coupled with some excellent images drawn from wikimedia's royalty-free paintings, we are happy with how the event system has worked out.
Now that we've reached the last gameplay feature, we can continue fleshing out the game, adding content in the form of events, new agents and new Dark Names until the game reaches a completion point. Despite this being the last major feature we planned, the future is still bright for Shadows. More patches will allow us to add to it, and once done, it's almost inevitable we'll begin work on Shadows 3, which can be a more polished, professional game, learning all the lessons from community feedback (less politics, more agents) and hopefully re-investing some of the income into art assets, especially on the UI side, which could really benefit from a rework. At the very least, we coule try a font which isn't bright yellow.
Hopefully you enjoy the events, and how we add to them in the future. If not, they can be disabled in the in-game options menu.
List of changes for Version 19:
-Bugfix to prevent dark empires existing into the next age
-Dark empires no longer spawn investigators
-Investigators are disbanded by Dark Society, try to avoid it while wandering and will not report suspicions to nobles of dark empires
-Vampires on AI now drink
-Boosted visibility of hostile units on map screen, increasing hosility border graphic and making them visible above location and name tags
-Nobles' fear of dark agents now occurs based on how close they are to the evil action, not globally. Gives highest threat estimation at the evidence location, then decreasing amounts in the nearby connected nodes
-Moving towards a more unified and complete hint system
-Only allow a single seeker
-Investigators and agents now automatically instantly go after seekers once they discover the truth
-Seekers can access libraries for twice the secret rewards to speed things up
-Plague doctors buffed, temporarily, with rework planned to allow interaction with disease mechanics
-Files to load now displayed in chronological order
-Expanded event messages a little bit
-Dark Heirophants can sacrifice broken nobles to gain power and refill enthrallment uses
-Nerf sacrifice broken noble heirphant ability, to prevent it being spammed infinitely in a dark empire
-Power gain now increases with world panic and with enthralled noble prestige (giving you a good reason to rise the ranks)
-First few events added
-Plague Doctor given a plague ability, for thematic reasons
-Agents told to go to a distant location by right clicking will assign themselves a "go to location" task
-Option to enable/disable events
-Added more events. Four major chains now exist: Twins, Letter, Tomb and Pyromaniac
-Bonus difficulty given to high-level rulers and dukes on harder difficulties
-Undead no longer attack Dark Empire
-Deep Ones are no longer hostile to surface-dwellers when not at war, reducing risk of getting killed by passing armies
-Your enthralled no longer sends letters to themself to turn themself insane
-Gods no longer exist between worlds, avoiding cooldowns being inherited from previous games
-Fixed Spread Fear so it's actually castable
-Fixed bug in events where they couldn't trigger on non-city locations
-Bugfix for issue where two locations could be in the same place
-Fixed text display issue on difficulty options
-Fixed wording in vampire tooltip
-Fixed bug where an army would be assigned the first ever person born as its leader, leading to them dying in battle despite being on the other side of the map
-People forget about long-dead ancestors when moving to the next age
-Merchants now no longer attack if controlled by the AI
-Movement is refunded if you can't complete a move due to an army
-Armies now no longer go after agents