Incline Shadows Of Forbidden Gods: The Sleeper Has Awakened

[Axioms]

So since I go around playing various games that are somewhat adjacent to Axioms mechanically I've been following and min-maxing theorizing about this game for a few months in my spare time.

This final version of the series is pretty similar to TWS except that it is an actual game.

It also has snakey/wormy boys, well a girl, so my TWS/Dune reference is super on point. Thanks.

The UI is a bit busy and I have discussed with bobby a bit that the Agents aren't prominent enough. They have muted and dark icons on the side, unless you select something and then they are covered up, which is not great. Similarly when looking at settlements important details take an extra click or hover to see.

I think bobby wants to support very low resolutions/small screens or something.

The gameplay is actually halfway decent plus it gets pretty constant and reliable updates. Bobby responds to feedback daily even if he doesn't always agree with it.

Since I did a 3 turn win in Star Dynasties I'm pretty tempted to do a SoFG speedrun but it would probably take too much time to really grind down to 50 turn wins or w/e I set as a target.

Ophanim is probably my favorite god conceptually. Sneaky, iconic religion of light that is actually evil fantasy trope. Thinking about getting into Vinerva.

So Ophanim is the duplicitous religion god, She Who Will Feast is the militaristic world eater/chompy girl, Vinerva is the sex/vines eldritch dryad type and she also makes sneaky deals, Mammon is coming soon with an economic focus, and of course Iastur is the god of madness with his tome that drives people insane.

That Which Sleeps had piles of money and press when it turns out it was all fake, but the fakes looked pretty I guess. Is there a strong reason SoFG isn't more popular? The more simmy and less god focused previous games have been out since like 2019 and were not as popular as you'd expect either.

 

[tindrli]

never heard about it. when does it starts

 

[thesheeep]

SplatterCat did a video on it recently:



Doesn't seem bad at all.
I like how your opponent(s) play a game of their own and you only interact with them very indirectly through agents.

 

[Axioms]

SplatterCat did a video on it recently:



Doesn't seem bad at all.
I like how your opponent(s) play a game of their own and you only interact with them very indirectly through agents.

Bobby paid Nookrium for a stream and Splattercat saw that stream and did his own unsponsored stream. Pretty good luck for Bobby. Splattercat did half decent for a streamer n00b.

 

[tindrli]

did anyone tried it?

 

[Alphons]

Played the demo- you have 200 turn limit after which the game ends plus only the snake god.

It's similar to Shadows Behind the Throne, but when I tried to play it like that (corrupt everyone, declare Evil Kingdom and roll through everyone with the army) I quickly got destroyed.

On my second playthrough I was able to completely destroy 2 kingdoms and seriously demolish 3 more.

One of my agents went around infiltrating and popping Shadow Wells that corrupt locations and characters.
Recruited a Courtier and put his hometown in the capital, which made him a nephew of the king and a relative of some nobles and minor heroes. Spent his time poisoning and making everyone mad and finally kicked off a plague.
Made an orc warlord and started raiding kingdom to the north and I was able to destroy it that way.

Got an event that a seer saw my god and her demon ancestor tries to possess her body. Promptly sacrificed one of the corrupted nobles and she turned into a demon scorching entire land and turning it into desert (she can only move through desert tiles). Due to plague, army wasn't able to stop her and she reached the capital, glassing it and everyone inside.

The neighbors were already infected with plague, so I sent the Courtier to spread it a bit more. With orcs and the First Daughter I was able to destroy 2 bigger cities and some villages before I've reached the turn limit.

Chosen One spawned on the other side of the map and did some stuff there.

 

[Axioms]

Played the demo- you have 200 turn limit after which the game ends plus only the snake god.

It's similar to Shadows Behind the Throne, but when I tried to play it like that (corrupt everyone, declare Evil Kingdom and roll through everyone with the army) I quickly got destroyed.

On my second playthrough I was able to completely destroy 2 kingdoms and seriously demolish 3 more.

One of my agents went around infiltrating and popping Shadow Wells that corrupt locations and characters.
Recruited a Courtier and put his hometown in the capital, which made him a nephew of the king and a relative of some nobles and minor heroes. Spent his time poisoning and making everyone mad and finally kicked off a plague.
Made an orc warlord and started raiding kingdom to the north and I was able to destroy it that way.

Got an event that a seer saw my god and her demon ancestor tries to possess her body. Promptly sacrificed one of the corrupted nobles and she turned into a demon scorching entire land and turning it into desert (she can only move through desert tiles). Due to plague, army wasn't able to stop her and she reached the capital, glassing it and everyone inside.

The neighbors were already infected with plague, so I sent the Courtier to spread it a bit more. With orcs and the First Daughter I was able to destroy 2 bigger cities and some villages before I've reached the turn limit.

Chosen One spawned on the other side of the map and did some stuff there.

SoFG is far more agent focused and much less politics focused than SBtT2.

 

[Malakal]

Played the demo- you have 200 turn limit after which the game ends plus only the snake god.

It's similar to Shadows Behind the Throne, but when I tried to play it like that (corrupt everyone, declare Evil Kingdom and roll through everyone with the army) I quickly got destroyed.

On my second playthrough I was able to completely destroy 2 kingdoms and seriously demolish 3 more.

One of my agents went around infiltrating and popping Shadow Wells that corrupt locations and characters.
Recruited a Courtier and put his hometown in the capital, which made him a nephew of the king and a relative of some nobles and minor heroes. Spent his time poisoning and making everyone mad and finally kicked off a plague.
Made an orc warlord and started raiding kingdom to the north and I was able to destroy it that way.

Got an event that a seer saw my god and her demon ancestor tries to possess her body. Promptly sacrificed one of the corrupted nobles and she turned into a demon scorching entire land and turning it into desert (she can only move through desert tiles). Due to plague, army wasn't able to stop her and she reached the capital, glassing it and everyone inside.

The neighbors were already infected with plague, so I sent the Courtier to spread it a bit more. With orcs and the First Daughter I was able to destroy 2 bigger cities and some villages before I've reached the turn limit.

Chosen One spawned on the other side of the map and did some stuff there.

SoFG is far more agent focused and much less politics focused than SBtT2.

Are all the army effects (deep ones, undead, flesh etc) still overpowered like crazy? It was way too easy to amass unbeatable hordes.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Gave it a go and it’s the first that which sleeps inspired game that actually held my interest (shadows didh’t click with me) so that’s already a great start.

In its current state, id say its about 40% of what that which sleeps promised to be. The barebones are there in that there are enough moving parts to have fun with, such as solid inter actor mechanics to make for some entertaining drama (ex: in 1 game my courtier started as the brother of the chosen one and when he finally got killed it caused a rift between the chosen one and a good chunk of the heroes, in another i corrupted some gandalf tier hero mage who had just had his soul cleansed and used him to open shadow portals all over whilst maintaining his goodly facade and being defended by other heroes who refused to believe he could turn evil).

After a few games though got bored as i felt the end game was always me working towards making a dark empire and using its military might to help take on the alliance regardless of what god i chose. Haven’t dabbled with the deep ones so maybe that’s an alternative victory path.
But yeah early to mid game is fun at least and gives you the kind of stories people larp about in the that which sleeps thread.

The game having workshop support is also a nice plus, assuming it gets popular enough to attract modders.

 

[Axioms]

Gave it a go and it’s the first that which sleeps inspired game that actually held my interest (shadows didh’t click with me) so that’s already a great start.

In its current state, id say its about 40% of what that which sleeps promised to be. The barebones are there in that there are enough moving parts to have fun with, such as solid inter actor mechanics to make for some entertaining drama (ex: in 1 game my courtier started as the brother of the chosen one and when he finally got killed it caused a rift between the chosen one and a good chunk of the heroes, in another i corrupted some gandalf tier hero mage who had just had his soul cleansed and used him to open shadow portals all over whilst maintaining his goodly facade and being defended by other heroes who refused to believe he could turn evil).

After a few games though got bored as i felt the end game was always me working towards making a dark empire and using its military might to help take on the alliance regardless of what god i chose. Haven’t dabbled with the deep ones so maybe that’s an alternative victory path.
But yeah early to mid game is fun at least and gives you the kind of stories people larp about in the that which sleeps thread.

The game having workshop support is also a nice plus, assuming it gets popular enough to attract modders.

Dark Empire is actually not considered an optimal strategy. Maybe a component of one but generall there's lots of other options. I'm not sure how easy it is to figure this out.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Really? It has become my crutch to the point I wouldn't know how to win without it.

Every time I rolled She Who Will Feast I'd just get zerg swarmed by the armies of whichever nations I didn't bring down as soon as she was reborn, having a dark empire gave me a reliable resting spot and could then go and help out on the battlefield in between naps.

For the other gods, there comes a point when the alliance is called and infiltrating and corrupting kingdoms no longer works, and if I don't have a dark empire going by then then it becomes a gg.

Guess gotta l2p.

 

[Alphons]

You can always murder the Chosen One.
New one spawns, but he has to gain the relationships with rulers the previous one had, which can really delay the Alliance.

Or slap an Infamous trait on Warlord, burn some villages with orc hordes and then get him killed by a hero to reset majority of heat on your other agents.

 

[Joggerino]

I guess splatter did another video on the game, that's how I found about it.


Game is incredible. At first I wasn't impressed because the UI is very basic and amateurish but game has a lot of depth and is totally worth a buy. Still trying to win with the snake God so I may write more about it later.

 

[Axioms]

I guess splatter did another video on the game, that's how I found about it.


Game is incredible. At first I wasn't impressed because the UI is very basic and amateurish but game has a lot of depth and is totally worth a buy. Still trying to win with the snake God so I may write more about it later.

Yeah I asked him about this a little over a week ago and he said he hadn't thought about it since the last video. Too bad it turns out Splat is kinda n asshole.

 

[Joggerino]

Yeah I asked him about this a little over a week ago and he said he hadn't thought about it since the last video. Too bad it turns out Splat is kinda n asshole.

You mean he's an asshole because he forgot about this game? Seems weird.

So this game has global spells, like "death of the sun" which makes the world colder.

Only after launching the spell did I realize most of the Alliance was situated in the cooler north and was affected the most by the spell. Northern part of the map became almost entirely uninhabitable. Many refugees were fleeing south.

 

[Axioms]

Yeah I asked him about this a little over a week ago and he said he hadn't thought about it since the last video. Too bad it turns out Splat is kinda n asshole.

You mean he's an asshole because he forgot about this game? Seems weird.

No, totally unrelated to SoFG sorry. Not really game related at all.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yeah I asked him about this a little over a week ago and he said he hadn't thought about it since the last video. Too bad it turns out Splat is kinda n asshole.

You mean he's an asshole because he forgot about this game? Seems weird.

No, totally unrelated to SoFG sorry. Not really game related at all.

That's kind of interesting. He always just seemed like a random stoner with a voice for radio.

 

[pickmeister]

He's shitting out a video daily. I highly doubt he remembers what he played the previous day.

 

[KateMicucci]

is this game worth playing yet

 

[luj1]

is this similar to Shadow Empire?

or to Dominions 4?

 

[Joggerino]

is this similar to Shadow Empire?

or to Dominions 4?

Not at all. You control your agents which have different strengths and weaknesses in order to infiltrate human society and spread your evil god's shadow. The agents have 'profile' and 'menace' stats which rise according to their actions and determine how human heroes react to them. If it gets too high they get hunted down. Also, every god has different powers and mechanics and the game really provides tons of ways to play. You can infiltrate religious societies and influence them to change their tenets/help them spread, you can lead the orc tribes to raid humans and spread chaos, you can make two human kingdoms go to war with each other and a million other things. Whole time the 'chosen one' goes around warning humans about you and is your main enemy basically. Can be killed, funnily enough. My main issues are some qol stuff with the UI and that it's a bit tedious in lategame controlling all the agents.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

1.0 Released today.

 

[Axioms]

As soon as I am done with Axioms I'm gonna spend some time on SoFG. It has some limitations but it has been a long saga from the old TWS debacle to bobby picking up the crown and grinding his TWS-inspired game to the finish line. He's got a lot more competition these days than there was back in 2017, but who doesn't.

 

[Space Satan]

I like that it serves a purpose. This game may show that such concept have a potential. Let's face it - it is a primitive low-effort game. But it may have a followup with some bigger devs may try to develop their own that which sleeps, that will not flop. Or better - Shadows of Forbidden Gods' devs will capitalize on their success as game have very good ratings and make a sequel with better graphics, better mechanics and better UI. A natural evolution done right.

 

[Axioms]

I like that it serves a purpose. This game may show that such concept have a potential. Let's face it - it is a primitive low-effort game. But it may have a followup with some bigger devs may try to develop their own that which sleeps, that will not flop. Or better - Shadows of Forbidden Gods' devs will capitalize on their success as game have very good ratings and make a sequel with better graphics, better mechanics and better UI. A natural evolution done right.

Bobby is unwilling to fix the Ui, both the general poor design and his obsession with having it viable for 800x600 resolutions. Someone might be willing to write a functioning manual for it, though, that can be added to the game, and a non-shit tutorial.