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Can't wait to see what the next iteration of the Shadows franchise has in store! The political side did confuse me so this renewed focus seems really positive.

Awesome work as always Bobby! Thanks for listening and responding so quickly to feedback.

Awesome work as always, keen to give it a run!

Great work, as always. Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope the steam release is painless and allows the game to reach more players. Looking forward to testing the new features out! I'll feedback on discord once I've had a chance to give them a run!

It was a 24 hour one. Here you 

Ill reply fully later, once kids are settled and I have a minute, but here's the link for the TWS discord: https://discord.gg/ywEnSywu

Right, a few minutes of my own now!

- Whilst I appreciate it is incredibly bad form to copy something very closely, a lot (like loads) of people want a TWS clone, because TWS looked very fun to play (someone on the Discord, on learning that you had been invited literally stated "if it gets us our that which sleeps clone im all for it").

- I love the idea of adding an RPG element to the enemy and I absolutely agree that faces allow more narrative interest.

- Re Events - I just thought it was the quickest and easiest way to allow branching gameplay.  But I'm no gamedev, to be fair.  I wouldn't worry about art mind, that's somewhat superfluous.  The reason I've suggested them is that they allow a sort of roguelike element and replayability.  The player wonders what would've happened if they had chosen another option.  It also allows the game to feel more "alive" (not sure how to express myself well here I'm afraid.  All I can say on this is that some of the mechanics (infiltration, for example) felt like I was going through motions to increase numbers, rather than doing a risky and interesting task.  Not sure that makes sense, but hopefully something there is of use!

- I'm not scared on how you want to develop the game man, it's entirely your baby and it's not my place.  My interest here is entirely selfish - I want a TWS like game and this is by far the closest thing available.  I'll offer my suggestions and you can use them or throw them away, that's entirely your prerogative and I'm not precious.  You'll always have my support though, because you are doing something that I actively get enjoyment from, regardless of where you go from here!

Cheers!

Awesome - I'll chuck a couple quid your way for the enhanced edition.

I feel like you should make a decision on how you want to proceed with this project as you seem to be at a sort of crossroads.

1. Do you continue to develop as you are?

2. Do you encourage future development primarily by the community via marketing?

3. Do you want a big publisher to pick up the project and run with it?

4. Do you commit more development time yourselves (not preferred/wanted)?

How do you want to proceed? You can always call on the community to try and help grow the community too, though I think a steam release would be beneficial as it legitimises the game.

Shadows started life as a That Which Sleeps proof of concept if I remember correctly. I don't mean the following to be harsh critique, so apologies in advance if it comes across that way but Shadows still lacks much of the most engaging elements of TWS. TWS was pitched as this dark fantasy, narratively driven, pseudo boardgame with procedural, narrative gameplay. Politics was an optional part of the game, as was military, magic/rituals, relations, trade/economics and the other systems that supposedly worked together to make the game. Now Shadows actually exists, so you've already surpassed TWS in that respect, but my point is that your primary target audience, at least to start with, was those who craved TWS but for obvious reasons were unable to play anything like it.

Shadows has the political systems down and to a degree some of the insidious magic systems, but it does not have meaningful combat (a staple in many games likes this), it does not have any economic gameplay and, crucially in my opinion, it lacks any real narrative drive. I can't emphasize this enough - one of, if not THE main draw of TWS was the ability to 'tell a story'. We wanted to influence the story/ies of the heroes trying to thwart this evil power in fun and engaging ways. We wanted to see Bilbo Fraggins go mad while trying to destroy the ring. Or perhaps our plans fail and against the odds he succeeded. But that was part of the fun to tell and experience those tales. Similar to how Rimworld, or even Dwarf Fortress allows for emergent narrative gameplay. The fun of the game isn't 'winning' - it's about experiencing a unique and interesting story through play. While I think there is a story getting told when I play Shadows, I have to work to find it and sometimes fill in the gaps.

If you want to grow the community quickly, my recommendation would be to make as close a game to TWS as is feasible (or closer in some key respects), to draw in that crowd first and foremost, since it was the root beginnings of Shadows. The community will grow organically too - if you look at the TWS wiki (that still exists, bless), it was all fan made.

There is a market for a TWS-like game - there is an active TWS discord, their YouTube and Kickstarter pages both still get regular comments and there are other games with a similar feel currently in production.

Regardless - thanks for the update as always, have a great Xmas and New Year.

Latest Manual upload seems to imply some pretty big and exciting changes on the way - character portraits, new agents and ways to play.  Exciting times ahead!

I don't know how feasible it is but I've been thinking on what would 'bring the game to life' (for me anyway) and I wondered would it be possible to add events? Like when an agent completes a task (among other things) the player is asked to resolve an event related to said task?  So take an infiltration task for example - when the agent completes it, perhaps they complete it poorly so the player must choose between losing the agent (imprisoned, killed) and gaining more infiltration or keeping the agent but losing power, or leaving evidence.

Events could also be used to improve combat, that's currently a completely one-sided affair.  The same can be said for maintaining an agent presence in a hostile nation.

We could also have events tied to political manouvers and changes - the breaking of a noble creates an event where we get to make various decisions around how that noble breaks in particular.

Anyway, just my ramblings, keep up the great work!

The perspective of a new, virgin player is very interesting and useful I think.  Good move, that.  I'm sure when I first discovered SBTT2 I was a bit lost when first starting out.  An 'easier' (or at least more comprehensible) version for new players is welcome and I'll be testing that out for a while I think.

I must confess the politics, while deep and the meat of the game, often confused me in terms of what I was actually accomplishing.  The actions of an enthralled Noble are inherently more subtle (and less identifiable) than the actions of a player controlled agent.  Focusing on this aspect for new players is a good idea I reckon.

As always, great work!

Awesome. Haven't had a chance to try the latest version yet but look forward to doing so soon.

Many thanks for keeping up the good work and stay safe!

Hi Bobby, no worries on the words, you're a hero as far as I'm concerned!

On point 2 - I think there is a disconnect for me in terms of having whole map actions.  It opens up almost too many opportunities because I can do anything (within reason) anywhere.  On the map agents are more intuitive in my opinion because they can guide the player to correct play styles.  For example the "Fish Man that makes Fish Men colonies" needs to go near the coast.  The "Enthralled/Noble/Political agent" needs to go in a city.  The "Military Leader agent" goes on the front lines so on and so forth.  Personally I find this type of presentation much easier to comprehend, but I appreciate it's a preference thing.

With regards to point 3 - perhaps greater feedback would help here?  Show the player how the political landscape is likely to change based on certain actions, show what will happen if no action is taken.  I found myself just voting for the most popular choice in my playthroughs, because I was unsure as to the risks of doing otherwise or the benefits.  I know there are overlays to show the "nations" but if we had some way to see where the political tensions were I think this would be really useful.  Where are the political tensions and what nobles do I need to defame to get the results I want?

I have yet to play the new version, though I have downloaded it.  I'll give it a spin when life settles down a little more and provide feedback but it sounds already like a fantastic improvement.  Names/Gods/whatever that allow a variety of playstyles (and direct the player to do so) are a great addition, in my opinion.

I recall playing the older versions with "lightbringers" and "world panic", I enjoyed that mechanic immensely, personally.

No worries on dev speed - as I said you're doing the (Dark) Lord's work creating this and making it open source and can only offer my thanks at this stage!  Out of interest - are you looking to get your development expertise to a point where you feel you may be able to create the game/kickstart/crowdfund it as more than a hobby?

Fantastic effort this and the only true attempt at a TWS inspired game.

Keep at it, get the mechanics sorted then add some nice art and UI and it could be a right winner.

I've watched your play through and read the tutorial but to be honest I struggle to play the game. I have no idea if I'm doing well or not and I'm not really sure how to enact a coherent strategy.

If you're after feedback here's some from me;

1. I find it very difficult to tell the different nobles apart. Different art here would be welcome (although I appreciate it's nowhere near as important as gameplay).

2. I'd like more agents to make use of. One enthralled does not feel enough and it feels that I have little agency as a player. Ideally multiple agents that do different things (Peddler, Rake or Witch to start?) would be awesome. I find the idea of creating a new agent in an existing settlement easier to understand in game terms than enthralling an existing noble too, but that is a preference I guess.

3. I'd like more varied races in game. In fact ideally - to make things simple at this concept stage I'd prefer it if all the different 'nations' were different races so I can quickly identify the nations at a glance. 

4. The leader of a nation is not clear to me, at a glance.

5. I don't understand/it isn't clear how I should go about achieving my objectives. It seems that I simply vote on various things while spawning fishmen camps. If I influence a vote a certain way it is overruled a few turns later, it seems like. For me I think less actions at the start of the game would be better so as to allow me to get to grips with the mechanics. Also the addition of mechanics that are 'free' (they cost only time) would be welcome so I'm not just skipping turns waiting for the next vote. For example give the enthralled an ability that allows them to slowly change the characteristic of another noble (pacifist to war-like, increased madness/shadow, acceptance of status quo etc).

6. Linked to the above I wonder how the game state develops over time. If I do nothing will the game cycle on an indefinite loop of the same decisions made time and time again? I think mechanically time should be a factor and should be the biggest threat to me as a player. It encourages agency and forces decision making. In other words the 'no play' state should lead always to a loss. Through playing a player should be able to delay or avoid the loss state, but it should be a pressing concern throughout a play through I think. It is simple, intuitive and forces engagement.

Apologies - seems like I've just wishlisted a ton of things I'd like to see changed/added here!

You're doing great work, truly and I'm really interested to see where this goes. If you ever want more feedback or ideas on different mechanics I'd be more than happy to help.

Many thanks!