That Which Sleeps announced

Joseph Vivolo of Boston indie studio King Dinosaur Games has written in to announce the development of That Which Sleeps, a turn-based fantasy strategy game in which you play an ancient evil plotting to take over the world.

The premise:

[T]he player takes on the role of an awakened evil from the world’s past and must manipulate a living, reactive world from the shadows using a variety of corrupted agents as well as what armies he can muster to his cause. Players must balance an aggressive approach utilizing his considerable powers with the need for secrecy – heroes are constantly examining clues left behind by the actions of the player and eagerly hunting the player’s agents.

The main game takes place on the world map, where you can dispatch agents to villages, cities, ruins, and other places of interest to complete a variety of dynamically generated challenges. Certain agents will be better suited to certain challenges, affecting how many turns it takes for them to successfully complete the task. In the meantime, your agents and their minions may be attacked by meddling parties of heroes.

Combat occurs in the style of a Final Fantasy boss battle, except that you control the boss: “the Agent leverages and often sacrifices his minions to distract or overwhelm key members of the adventuring party while he himself utilizes his unique powers to overcome the heroes, and, as may often be the case, escape. Early combat will seldom lead to outright death, but every time a Hero loses a certain amount of health he will gain an injury, and if his willpower lowers he may gain a neurosis – both of which can be much more useful for you than a corpse.”

Damage is high on both sides, making fights quick and deadly. The developers state that the venue of a fight matters as well:

Fighting in a city may draw out guards, guildmates, or cabal mages depending on what features exist in the city. Who they fight for is up in the air, if you are “welcome at court” in the nation then they will side with you against the pesky adventurers, but if you are wanted, or a Champion of the nation is on their side, they will battle against you.  Battle locations can also have traits, if you were discovered while skulking about in the catacombs the battle will be “Cramped” – and heroes won’t be able to attack you if you have a living minion, but also a single hero can guard his entire team.  Fight in the swamps and the heroes may find themselves poisoned, in a Holy City you may find your “Imbued” powers significantly weakened.

The game seems to be still be fairly early in development, as there isn’t any video footage or screenshots of combat yet, but the developers have compensated by providing a really lengthy, detailed description of the game’s mechanics. All in all, it seems like you will have a few approaches available to you: brute force, subterfuge, a sort of insidious diplomacy, and various paths in-between. I’ll be copy-pasting the full description below the break.

The game plays almost entirely on a 2D map where you’ll be moving your expanding (and sometimes decreasing) roster of Agents through Cities, Villages, Ruins, and other Points of Interest(POI).  The map itself is a static representation of a hand-crafted world, but is dynamically altered by a series of chooses made at scenario select.  Agents primarily interact with the world by pursuing challenges which take multiple turns to complete based on the skill of the agent vs the defensive stats of the POI, while doing this they are susceptible to meddling heroes who may attempt to hunt down the Agent.  If found, or if the Agent initiates, combat occurs between the two parties – generally several adventurers vs an Agent and his minions (Agents don’t work well together).

Combat is a quick, but momentous, turn-based affair meant to simulate the feel of classic RPG boss battles – the Agent leverages and often sacrifices his minions to distract or overwhelm key members of the adventuring party while he himself utilizes his unique powers to overcome the heroes, and, as may often be the case, escape. Early combat will seldom lead to outright death, but every time a Hero loses a certain amount of health he will gain an injury, and if his willpower lowers he may gain a neurosis – both of which can be much more useful for you than a corpse.  In order to better your odds at combat, you can Imbue agents with increasingly powerful options though at the cost of more strategic powers and your own inviolability, or have them seek out powerful artifacts from prior ages.

The key to the game’s fun is the result of the challenges, which can range from assassinating key members of government, corrupting and then becoming the leader of various guilds, burning farmland and villages, and becoming “welcome at court” in order to delude the leader’s of the world.  Weighing your strategic options is heavy stuff, you’ll never have enough Agents to do all that you want, and as Agents grow more famous they will be purposefully hunted down by heroes.

In support of your agents you’ll be able to leverage the unique powers of your Old One, some can see (and manipulate) the future, others incarnate quickly in spectral form, and of course one is the harbinger of the requisite zombie apocalypse.  Random events will need to be capitalized on, as will the desires of the nations that populate the scenarios – while they remain ignorant of your rising darkness they will war with each other and pursue frivolous goals.  Of course, you can enter the political game yourself – any nation corrupted to your cause, and some other sources, can be used to muster troops and war with the people of the realm.  It may not be the most subtle approach, but it presents another viable strategy, particularly powerful when used in moderation.  Military battles are simpler than Agent battles and play out over multiple turns, allowing you to pursue delaying strategies in support of your agents or simply fighting a brutal war of attrition to weaken your enemies.

While you are doing all this heroes are running around the world performing quests, leveling, forming friendships and rivalries and finding clues left behind by all your agents actions.  Quests are a fantastic way to upset with some subtlety the hopes of heroes, they take the form of multiple steps – and with the proper infiltration you can see their plans in advance.  An example might be that the heroes gather in a certain area, disperse to accomplish certain per-requisites, and then move on to a final space to perform the quest.  Seeing that a weak link is off by itself, you can send your agent to kill him directly, or to prevent the kind of clue that creates, simply increase the danger of the POI he will be going to.  Indirect actions work to maintain the veil of secrecy surrounding your return which is key to successfully retaking the world.

Clues are an important object to touch in, as your existence being public would bring the world together to defeat you.  When a solitary agent performs an action, it leaves clues about his identity and motivation.  A mercenary working with goblins would present just these straightforward clues, a mercenary working with demons would leave a more suspicious clue, and a mercenary found with another agent is even more suspicious.  The worst type of clues are those that elevate the suspicions above humans, such as if your agents are seen wielding powers you have imbued them with or you abuse your divine abilities.  Heroes share clues with other friendly heroes, and if they have certain knowledge such as an Agent’s identity or that the Old One is rising they will try to tell the leader’s of the world – a much beloved hero can be your deadliest enemy even if you never confront him in battle.  Fortunately, you have many tools in your arsenal to poke holes in the knowledge of the world from corrupting centers of learning to the more blunt assassination of the wisest heroes.