itch.io

so I made a mod proposal/idea in the SOFG discord server, and although it was meant for SOFG 1 (given that, amongst other things, most if not all spells will be removed and something new will happen instead), but I was told to maybe bring these Ideas over here, so here ya go

fair enough. if I may request a change then: could you make the site for shadows 2 dark mode? currently, it is completely white and bright and I have no way of changing it (since the owners of the game dictate how their site looks like)

aye, currently the game either rewards spamming so much evidence that they cannot keep up (EG blood magic) or to not make any evidence at all by only having a single cult in a large nation that you then can fully infiltrate and enshadow and thus spread said shadow everywhere without generating any additional evidence (note that cult of decadence does not make any, so you could literally go a no evidence game via going for the profitable acquisition and then going for a cult of decadence) and thus make humanity unable to create any kind of understanding by keeping hidden completely.

obv it is a prealpha rn, given it is just a way of showcasing a potential mechanic, but it will really need work in order to function the way it is intended to - because otherwise, it will create scenarios similar to the permaguarding due to a love for a character/their race or the magical arms race making lore heroes no longer care about lore tasks

the funny thing is, I think it is too powerful instead - at least, due to the way enshadowing works in this game right now

currently, unlike in the previous game, you can just enshadow a hero via a single agent practicing blood magic - which was, in fact, in the last game the first agent I got. I basically started placing a web of guilt and web of hate everywhere - but even if I only did web of guilt, it would basically make sure that I would have evidence that needs to be researched which also in turn enshadows the person doing it. this in turn would basically spread shadow out into other locations because the heroes would travel everywhere - like having to go to a university, or rest and resupply at a city. while this did not usually enshadow a location fully - most places were "only" at 20-60% shadow (from people taking 6 turns to investigate evidence) which, while unable to spread shadow to other locations itself, would enshadow any hero that would rest at that location - effectually creating a self perpetuating spread of shadow. in addition, by going a bit into magic, I basically forced any hero that would have been capable of stopping me to only participate in the magical arms race instead of doing things like cleansing their friends souls (on that note, I want to say that cleansing a family member always had positive motivation, even if they themselves were at 60% shadow; and even after a person got enshadowed, they still retained dislikes of people who committed an act marking them as their nemesis, which usually was something like stealing money or spreading shadow). combine that with people still enshadowing due to researching evidence as well as getting disrupted due to hearing how the warlock cast a spell, making him their nemesis, and getting hit with a 10 sanity debuff (not usually enough but sometimes making a hero insane) and 20 turns of disruption after just getting a single arcane secret meant that the heroes were purely a detriment at that point, spreading shadow for either enhanced infiltration, enshadowing other heroes, or if I was actually smart I could have dome something like start a cult of shadow and do the thing that spreads shadow everywhere where it is 5% or more (since every place is at least somewhat enshadowed, and at that point it would have started to spread full shadow to neighboring locations) but instead I was just content with doing that only and would have won via dark empire and finishing the final battle if it was not for my supplicant having only rats and then getting bombarded by random spells, before the game broke for an unknown reason (bug fixes can come later when it is more stable, I have no clue why it broke but I could no longer end the turn and there was no red text)

at least those are my thoughts currently, after playing with it once more. oh yeah, away from the critique - I really like that we now get shown what creates or does not create evidence. and slaughter inquisitors has menace now, so that is neat too. it allowed me to find out that, as an example, the cult of decadence has no evidence - so one possible course of action is probably to just get money the hard way via the intrigue challenge to peddle shitty goods till you have enough and start up a decadent cult as a sort of "no evidence gameplay". unless that was an oversight of course (in which case, I think cult of decadence really needs a buff given the high cost). the monarch is also able to declare themselves the dark lord again like before, though it now needs infiltration on top of enshadowment, but its more clearly communicated now

as a side note, death magic cannot be learned anymore it would seem - only blood and geomancy are options, which either was an oversight that it was not added, or the warlock being able to get death with their spawning trait is the oversight instead

as a last question, is this the best form of giving feedback/communicating, or would you prefer/have a different method by chance, sir? it at least feel like I am replying all over the place and I cannot tell if that is good or not

hey, so, dumb question: do enshadowed heroes spread shadow themselves? there just seems to be a lot of shadow where there should not be

you are welcome. I personally think that, given that there already exists a lot of a game, things can be reused - even if temporarily, to focus on mechanics and interactions mainly - at least for any kind of alpha build, while it is in pre-early access so to speak, unless you are very certain that things will work out (I worry since with the last game there more and more issues towards the end due to legal stuff and taxes and the like which slowed and eventually halted development, which I do not wish for the new project to be affected by. it also means in case there IS some kind of issue with mechanics that cannot be solved, there was no financial commitment to it to mess with it)

side note - I am thinking that, maybe universities should be some kind of city point of interest, be it rolled into the library (though, maybe there is too much power concentrated in a library then? unless every point of interests gets new cool stuff) or into some other unique one, since it is currently too easy to infiltrate them

as a side note, though it is perhaps not as much a priority - maybe the way gold works could be changed/reworked? I ask because locations like 10 pop villages cannot really do much of anything, since the unrest created via taxation is usually more than the unrest reduction would need in terms of gold, since it is always a flat amount. and because taxation takes time and needs to be prioritized, sometimes there are things like "I have 200 motivation to do this thing, but it requires gold that I do not have, but the motivation to gather gold is too low compared to (lets say brutal crackdown) so I will do [the other challenge] instead". I am not sure if that falls within the scope, but if things like shadow spread are reworked and evidence becomes a thing, I would love to see the economy to have a change that prevents it from being very one sided/having so many edge cases that they basically become the norm. those are my thoughts right now at least (I so far have yet to play version 03, I only now saw the message I received)

side note, I think refugees should be nationless - since refugees might be fleeing, say, from the alliance (due to being razed) to the dark empire yet the dark empire will just see the refugees and consider it an enemy and kill the people that would work for it

Did some more playing. so far I have noticed that:

- the dark empire and the dark are hostile to one another, BUT dark combat support from heroes joining the DE applies to both the dark (tentacles) and the dark empire, while the dark empire is forced to battle the tentacles (despite being allied)
- the tentacles can only raze and drive back, since they cannot move and you need a movement point to attack

- you can just stack inordinate amounts of evidence via level 1 blood magic. if you are extra spicy, go up to blood 2 and thus double the effect of the disruption power

- in fact, talking about blood and evidence, if you make a single deep one city you can then begin converting minor settlements into deep ones after getting a special item from it, which you can mask via just using something like the web of hate or lies or whatever you wish, which then causes that to have more menace than the actual deep ones have, so they always succeed

- heroes do not know what to do if the nearby universities are raided and thus non functional, so everyone keeps investigating evidence but not reasearching it

- heroes joining the DE at 100% darkness is honestly kinda neat, especially after you kick start the magical arms race

- web of hate and web of guilt allow you to basically any evidence anywhere you want with barely any consequence, as well as directly creating the things that will make them active (since they drop evidence at their own location, thus making people either enshadowed or giving them a reason to hate them)

- the charity blood effect should either make the ruler give you 50% of the gold or scale with the blood level. 20 for that amount of menace is not really a good trade

- orcs are still incredibly hard to actually capture without either leveling up your warlord or giving them items and minions

- universities barely if ever get repaired, since they have a flat 50 motivation that is then divided by turns needed to do it, making no one really care

 - messengers still appear from aware locations even if they are enshadowed. they should either stop spawning or have some sort of subversive effect like increasing shadow or like for shadow at the same time as spreading awareness (since awareness can be a boon for say,  joining the dark empire)

- I have yet to see a single defensive mechanism vs blood magic, as researching magic related stuff does not actually seem to create any kind of thing like wards or inquisitors etc.

- slaughtering inquisitors creates neither menace nor evidence

- it does not appear as if being a deep one or liking deep ones does anything except somewhat reduce likelyhood of going against deep ones; aside from making them more likely to join the dark empire

- deep one rulers die when their city gets drowned via 100% maturation, making me question why I turn them into deep ones in the first place

- there is no way to scroll down if you have armies crowding everything else out

- messengers are in the recruit able units list. trying to recruit them does nothing except take away your recruitment point (they are recruit able due to being fully enshadowed, stemming from enshadowed locations)

- messengers have family trees and clog up the relations trees, even after they die

- the "final battle has begun" or "can begin" message appears every single turn

those are the things that come to mind right now. I am gonna attach a screenshot to show some of the absurdity (not derogatory, more like it is funny, though it definitely needs to be fixed). I am playing on version 2 as a side note (aka the one that was updated less than 24 hours ago)

one of THE most important things right now, I believe, is to mark which challenges create a piece of evidence in the first place. as an example, I infiltrated two universities next to one another and put cultists into their faculty - however, the game never mentioned that at any point it would create a piece of evidence, which is especially counter intuitive since the evidence is right on the location where it would also be studied

I see, thanks for explaining

I am not sure if I need a tutorial exactly - SOFG was played by me without a tutorial as well (for the most part), most if not all the information was able to be inferred from the challenges or the quest descriptions - as such, I would request that those be the foci - something like having infiltration describe what is necessary for it to happen, or maybe having specific quests by the heroes describe what the quest is supposed to achieve (which would also be useful for quests like guarding - like, if a human is being guarded, it would be nice to know for how long they will be guarded. in fact it actually would be kinda nice if obsessively liking a species would not result in someone just becoming a dedicated guard forever)

what I can say are some nice changes mechanically or UI wise are how shadow does not spread as easily, how infiltration is not a thing that "just happens" anymore (since you need to have a somewhat significant cost to basically start doing it), and the way that the challenges are filtered (based on stat used or things like infiltration) means that it was easier to actually see specific things; especially when you have things like death, souls or geomantic loci in a given location since those added a looot of challenges you might not wanna see right away. I also like how numerous challenges have "other" effects that basically make them easier (or harder) like how cults improve certain challenges based on their growth

I can say though, I do enjoy the new change that shadow cannot really spread unless you are at 100% shadow since it no longer snowballs by enshadowing every location a small amount 

there are also problems such as there being no way to make a dark empire - since it still shows the old description, yet seemingly needs something different than a capital's ruler being at 100% shadow

I think one of the most important things is going to be clearing up the descriptions - what I mean is that a lot of the challenges are randomly assigned text that is not supposed to belong to them, and a lot of challenges (like infiltration) do not have text to say what is needed to do them (like how I need a cult to infiltrate a location - or what happens in location that do not have a cult and how they can be infiltrated)

otherwise, it is definitely...interesting, although I do feel like I have to basically get a city right next to a university so I can immediately infiltrate it and thus reduce the amounts of understanding generated; especially since, when inquisitors are in play and I want to remove them, that just creates even more evidence to be used against me (and possibly to grow understanding)

orc upstarts basically require you to have a kitted out orc (or at least get vermin) so you can deal any kind of damage to the 8 damage dealing upstarts, which makes orc gameplay significantly harder

the way the new map looks is a bit eh in my personal opinion, as I much prefer the hex based one, especially since it meshes weirdly (suddenly cuts off into new pieces of land) as well as geenrates small islands in location that are purely ocean making me think there is land there

so, having played the version before the update/overhaul - it is miles apart in terms of both quality and story. I am kind of afraid of continuing to play it because I do not want to be spoiled for the better version, but from what I can tell the MC in the first version is an uncontrollable horndog assaulting anyone he can, who needs to understand how to effectively "convince" people using magical hypnotic suggestion to do what he wants them to do, whereas in the updated version he starts off doing it unconciously, then to train himself but mostly kinda falls for his very horny (while hypnotized) childhood friend (and then crosses a lot of lines while that is the case)

the goddess too, goes from a more or less all knowing entity that quickly disappears after she gets her boobabe to someone confident in her powers and skills but unaware of how the human world functions (besides what she gleamed from the protag), and also kinda passes out quickly (be it due to exhaustion or due to mentioning her friend - she always seem to pass out when she talks about her)

that is like, purely talking about story, ignoring such massive improvements such as the dialogue, art and of course just generalized pacing and progression.

I am kinda curious to see if the mechanics of the updated game will be somewhat similar to the first version, regarding needing to understand your subject to know how to hypnotize them, or if the "hidden side" of his subject comes out when they are hypnotized, thus not necessarily needing him to push them into depravity as it is present from the start already

so, I just finished playing the game (unfortunately had to find out via the main menu that there is no more content)

and I have to say - holy shit I missed this type of content
no, let me correct myself - I feel like this is the type of thing I always kinda wanted but never could find anywhere, while drowning myself in stuff that is acceptable but not really satisfactory. I spent a lot of my time the last year or two just roleplaying with AI, trying to make it work with hypno/corruption content somehow as well as with other fetishes, yet always getting disillusioned at the end, and kind of even resenting opening the apps and websites. I spent time on nhentai and reddit, and usually had to scroll through 90% of boring content to find something good. but man, this feels nothing like it

I was not expecting this game to have so much thought put into detail, like with the facial expressions changing during the conversations (rather than always having one specific PNG per text popping up), or the text slowing down or speeding up to signify the actual speed/weight. there is voice acting, something I also did not think would be present in something that is currently free, and the way how magical hypnosis and inductuctions are combined in this game is honestly peak - MC living through the dream of everyone who is into hypno as a top rn

I do not know where the story will go - from what the menu implies, I will both be befriending and hypnotizing every main female character in this game, including the goddess (since she has a bar for it as well), so I cannot tell if there will be a split between hypnotized and regular people, if it will slowly merge (similar to the command to not wear clothes/find it natural not to wear any) or if people will be made aware of it (and be able to give consent, I find it hot with or without while in fiction) and thus lean into it/request things

I feel like I may be glazing the game too much but man, after having to deal with so much slop or just boring content from so many things, I legitimately just cannot appreciate the game enough. I also wanna note, despite only knowing the MC for a few hours, I already kind of have a feel for his character, so kudos to the writer for that as well

I do not know what the future has in store for you good sir, but I hope that you succeed in whatever it is you are doing; I know that I myself will certainly be following you throughout that journey because I do not think I will get any kind of hypno game this good have a new release within the next 5 years at least

also, as a side note if I may ask: the art presented on the right is different from the two scenes I have seen in game so far. does it have to do with the fact that I have not progressed into the game far enough, or does the art on the right require a paid version?

Heya! a small bug/oversight: before you even get into the castle, you can open the quest tab, and see quests like "reclaim your stolen power" and "gather an army" - I assume that these things should pop up only after you are done getting your powers sucked out (I have only now finished the lamia, so I do not know the details of what will happen)

so wait...the itch version is 3 versions behind the patreon, BUT you still need to buy the itch version rather than being able to access it for free? so you kind of pay twice to truly get access to the game??? unless I misunderstand something, that is a rather greedy way of selling the game

as in, I am not using mods, so it is not a mod issue. I just bought the game today :(

hey! apologies for asking, but, what can I do when the screen becomes a blank white sometimes, with all music stopping? the game no longer reacts, and I do not know how to even look for bugs. no mods, as I do not know where one could install them

heya! apologies for asking, is there a dev log where updates are tracked? I ask specifically because looking at the dev log here I see the last version update was in january, the one before in april, the one before july etc. which implies that another update could drop soon, and I would rather wait till the update drops assuming it is within the next two months

no rush by the way - I just like downloading a game once rather than downloading an update and playing some more, hence the question. I have not tried the game yet, but heard it was great, so I am surprised to see that it is free! thank you for developing this game

apologies for asking, but why is it an Exe? asking because windows is iffy about it and does not like it when ExE files from unknown publishers are run :(
I know I can run it, but I am a bit worried about running an unknown program

gladly! the power of autism is strong with me lmao
idk if this is a thing that people do, but if you ever wanna ask feedback about gameplay/design or stories or just want to have any of mine, feel free to ask. I like analysing things, and I like writing as well. in either case, good luck!

played till the end now. the remaining 2 cutscenes were good as well! part of me hopes that she undergoes some sort of psychological change from the extended tickle torture, like maybe becoming a pervert who gets off of the tickle torture or no longer resisting it. from what I see she will remain unchanged in that regard, and honestly I assume it is for the best to keep the story going

the puzzle is easy once I figured out that specific part. all of them in fact - it just seems to be that specific piece of knowledge that I needed, that the block in front of you never hardens. it might be a good idea to have her call it out, or implement a hint system of some kind where either after a certain amount of retries or always nestled somewhere in the menu is an option to recieve a hint to help you progress

only annoying thing was with the last puzzle where it was not possible to see the hard block hidden behind the pillar, and the fact that I was at the start unsure if I could activate the emerald pillar by interacting from the side

I am glad to know that it is developed in english originally. I wish more games either were developed in english or had someone do a proper translation considering that you can say things that go so hard in the original language, as opposed to whatever machine translation does (usually turn me off from the game completely, especially if it is explaining something complex like game mecahnics or the story but utterly fails due to the nature of machines). and as a fellow writer, I enjoyed what I saw. it is one thing to write a girl being tickled by machines and growing to love it (a story I have written, though I usually share it with people individually if they want to see it rather than publically posting it since it feels personal) and another to actually see it drawn. I hope you guys are successful!

so I have played a bit now, though I have not gotten completely through it

I like the visuals a lot, it is a high quality tickling hentai game. though it could use more and improved visuals, that is like saying that food costing 200 bucks is probably tastier than something for 10 bucks. all around, I like it.

the fetishes in the game are mostly some which I enjoy - tickling, orgasm torture (whether forced orgasms or orgasm denial/edging, though I cannot tell which one it was). peeing is not for me but luckily it seems to be limited and more of a side thing rather than a main fetish like it is in other tickling games. if it becomes big enough, you could potentially add a "fetish list" to the settings where you can turn off specific fetishes to change the cut scenes by cutting out the pieces that are not liked - if it is within the budget to do that

the translation is good. like, actually good - most hentai games get machine translations. not only do I always get the point across, it feels very well done, like something done by an actual writer, rare it feels like nowadays

the story is questionable, but that is very common in hentai games. you have a premise to get you into the action, and the specific story details do not matter. it does feel somewhat dark, which I like though. like any real religion, their religion too is based upon their hypocrisy, and the condemnation made me actually feel things. so who cares about details, the presentation is key and was done well

I sadly cannot say much about the gameplay, because I got stuck in the first puzzle room with the roots, since there was seemingly no way to cut a root to access the root that needs to be cut next without making it harden. this is especially exemplified because the rules are nto clear - since you get a 2 block thick 3 blocks wide bush you have to go through first, and it only makes the blocks at it's side hard, not those in front - but I assume there is a clear solution. a thought that propped up is that the block after it, aka. the second block in front of you does not harden, but I will have to see

all in all, I wish you luck, because there are too few hentai games and FAR too few tickling games out there. I would love to know more about your dev teams and what kind of things you have planned (whether gameplay or tags, eg. corruption, foot worship etc.)

note of a bug: when in the main menu and you move the mouse over a button, it always makes the "select" sound repeatedly. as in, any slight change of the position of the mouse over such a button causes the sound to be played again, even if the mouse was already hovering over the button before

aye, thanks for reading it. I do def recommend looking into either giving the enemy equipment or making it more dangerous to board the enemy as well as more reliable ways to get psykers (you could make it possible for the craft to either be damageable or for it to take longer depending on the strength of the enemy's weapons/shields/thrusters so that there is an incentive to first damage the enemy craft before sending in your people) (as for the second, mixing up the people available at trading stations could work - rather than having one type filling all three slots)

I def see potential with the game so I wish you luck sir!

well, having played a round of the game I have to say, this game looks interesting. it is very obviously FTL With a grimdark totally not warhammer 40k spin don't sue us GW with it's own spins and twists upon numerous systems, for the better or worse

many things I can simply note as "it is in an alpha, it makes sense that it is not fleshed out" since it released relaticely recently so I will not say much about features which might or might not be good

what I would like to note however is that currently, boarding is far too OP, especially considering that you can get equipment, while your enemy cannot. this leaves you with ultra tough warriors as you stack one or two sources of  DPS reduction in a world where most enemies deal 3 DPS, get multiple weapons which either deal immense damage (arc rifle) or in fact just kill multiple people at once (the one that attacks the entire room) and you are left breezing through the game as you just launch your warriors to kill everyone inside the enemy ship with ease while able to recall them instantly, or if it is a demon ship you can just park them on the shields system and as long as a single person remains in that room it will not be rebuilt. the system of "death causes the system to be damaged" just makes it more egregious

psykers, though an interesting concept, are sadly not worth anything because you will practically never get anyone, even if you travel to a shaman (you just get the ghoul summoners most likely), even though it looks like they could be immensly powerful if you have the proper templates (since psychic bolts pierce shields, so you can just go for the shields system straight away)

all around a 3/5, needs a lot more work before I am interested in doing anything, since I will not restrict myself to only ranged combat when invasion is possible and intended. it does show promise however

apologies for asking, but what is the difference between this version and the original version?

Don't know why it would be a bad idea, unless the country would somehow persecute you for being on this site, but in either case, that makes sense. Hope your situation improves

damn, where you living at if I may ask? 

sad that there are no more games out there, but oh well. when there are few people into it, you gotta support them how you can, so you have my 20 bucks. hope to maybe see you do something with this game/make another game at some point in time. have a nice day, kuri!

there we go

damn, for whatever reason it does not actually post the image, despite having the preview showing the image itself

me waiting for the next comment of whether or not it will come to android despite them only needing to look once to see the answer:

a really interesting game that I will watch the developement of! Really hits well regarding the kinks (BDSM, tickling, furry) and the art/design is awesome! few games which are as graphically good as this one without being visual novel styles of games

only thing is that the gameplay atm is rather lackluster, however I assume it is because this is a demo and because it is early access, more or less, so it will be way better in the future. wish you luck/fun during developement, sir/miss!

nevermind once again, it is possible. except now I do not know how to resize it into the previous size again, as the resolution is different now. halp