With just over a week to go, the game is now in its first Early Access release form, waiting for the 1st of November to become available on Steam.
Three Gods are present, She Who Will Feast, the great serpent, whose strategy revolves around shadow and will be a player's first introduction to the game. Iastur, the Laughing King, who focuses on madness, as his agents carry an insanity-inducing tome around, shattering kingdoms and crippling human ability to co-operate. Lastly, Vinerva, the Hanging Tree, who arrives with gifts, and ruins any who are foolish enough to accept them. At the disposal of these dark beings are seven unique agents and two generic ones. Each of these brings with them distinct abilities to support or allow a range of strategies, from climate change to plague warfare to harassment of heroes in hit-and-run attacks to changing the personality or relationships of the rulers of human kingdoms. These can be deployed into worlds created by fully procedural map generation, giving over four billion separate worlds for the players to invade.
The game's loop is complete, starting with the singular supplicant at the Elder Tomb, progressing to the recruitment of a cast of agents and military forces (be it orcish hordes given purpose and structure or a Dark Empire lead by the silent Monarch), then meeting its opposition as the Chosen One rallies the rulers and heroes of the world. Once warned, humanity will be on guard against the players' assaults, and will form an Alliance of Light to oppose the player. The Alliance may resist shadow and infiltration, but they still require food, which cannot grow if their crops fail them, they still fall to sword and axe, and they would certainly not survive a continent-ruining volcano or a god-worm the size of a mountain devouring their citizens by the thousands.
Three core areas will be worked on immediately following Early Access: Balance, General Content and New Player Experience.
Balance is a core concern. While the game is not intended to ever be perfectly balanced, which would require many of the complex strategies and interactions to be removed, the game must allow all strategies to have their places. Any challenge which is too weak, any agent who is neglected or any power which is never used would need to be buffed. Player feedback is a key part of this, and any feedback is of course very much listened to and appreciated.
General Content represents the bulk of the player's non-strategic experience. Flavour text, additional minor challenges, more minions, items or events... These will greatly add to the game, and can now be given focus for a couple of weeks, with the core strategic loop established.
New Player Experience is important for the game to be accessible and playable. Shadows of Forbidden Gods is a complex game, and fairly novel in terms of its gameplay style, so players will often struggle to find their feet for the first few hundred turns. Focus will therefore be given to improving the information the new players have access to, from various context-sensitive hints to altering the gameplay flow in the early-game to guide the player towards beneficial strategies.
These will remain the focus of the first month of work on the game, and will hopefully lead to a strong set of updates being rapidly rolled out as the first few weeks go by.