Hello everyone!
In our previous posts, we talked about the encounter system and the impact of your choices. In this devlog, we will be diving into the council system, which sits right at the center of our cult.
The Balance of Power at the Table
Our council consists of 4 seats in total. The council members sitting behind you react to every decision you make. There are certain Zodiacs and personality traits you need to consider when selecting members. Every disciple you bring into the council can affect your weekly balance and provide a group bonus along with the other council members.
Can Every Character Be a Council Member?
Yes. Every character can be a council member, but the seat matching their Zodiac must be empty. For example, you cannot assign two characters with the Waylayer Zodiac sign to your council because there is only 1 seat for each Zodiac. This is a very deliberate design choice. When we first designed the council system, we could freely assign characters to any seat we wanted. However, over time we realized that placing characters of the same type who wouldn't clash with each other was a much safer option. This completely eliminated the tension and chaos we wanted to create in the council. To solve this issue, we tied each seat to a specific Zodiac. Now, you are forced to keep those contrasting characters and different ideas together, meaning you have to manage that chaos. If you manage to do so, the game will reward you.
What If I Don't Assign Anyone to the Council?
You might think, "If characters are going to cause trouble in the council, I just won't assign anyone." However, in that case, you won't be able to find the financial resources to feed your cult, you won't earn bonuses, and you might become unable to deal with the problems that an empty council will create within the cult. As your cult grows, the importance of your council will increase just as much.
Level and Loyalty
In addition to characters leveling up as they solve events on the map, the personalities of the characters in the council can also gain experience points and level up. However, you must pay close attention to loyalty levels while managing your council members. To invite a character to the council, their loyalty must be at least 50. Arguments and unrest can break out among these characters depending on certain situations. You are forced to make decisions during such moments. As a result, a council member whose loyalty drops to zero doesn't just quietly leave the table; they turn into a heretic and start consuming our cult from the inside. Also, a drop in loyalty reduces the probability of your characters solving a task on the map. As you can see, everything is connected to each other.
Reactions, Interactions, and Guessing
Faced with incoming events, characters in the council can sometimes show positive or negative reactions based on their own nature. They can reveal one of the personalities necessary for you to guess the Zodiac of new disciples joining your cult. We will cover this guessing mini-game we play when recruiting someone new to our cult based on our choices in encounters, hidden traits, and the personality details of the characters more comprehensively in the future.
As we mentioned before, we are a small team and we are trying to make the best game we possibly can. Your support is a huge motivation for us. If you want to support us, do not forget to add our game to your wishlist and follow us. See you in the next devlog!