I’ve been thinking about various options, but probably I’ll avoid any changes for the time being. After all, even though none of the poll voters said it was easy, none of them wanted it to be “nerfed” either. Since neither the Savior or Creator endings are really that difficult to reach to begin with, it could take away most of that “sense of achievement” if there was an option to basically auto-win those achievements (assuming an option to significantly reduce the difficulty).
You could always disable the achievements in the easy mode
2 Likes
Missed the polls, but while the battle against Quanom was a challenge, it wasn’t an insurmountable one. I wouldn’t change anything.
So far I haven’t changed Quanom’s stats (since the release). It does seem like a meaningful minority of players can’t beat that battle, but on the other hand, you’ve basically seen 99% of the story at that point anyway. I think it adds something to the game to have an opponent you can realistically die to at the end, too. If you lose 2+ times there, you’ll probably look for a guide.
(I’ve considered the idea of an “easy mode”, but haven’t done it yet. It would practically remove a big portion of the game.)
3 Likes
Although I’m late to the party, I just wanted to say that I enjoyed Divine Ascension quite well! There’s always something enjoyable about playing god/deity.
I didn’t really find the battle with Quanom difficult at all. I guess it helped that I subjugated almost all of my neighbors and used a divine spear for my first playthrough. I wished this was longer, but at the same time, I think its length is perfect enough as it is (that’s what she said). I also appreciate the mini achievement guide at the end. Thanks!
1 Like
@TonyG Thank you for the review! 
Indeed, with certain good choices (mainly investing enough in faith and Templars), the Quanom battle should be pretty easy. If you invest too little in stat growth, though, it can become a fatal obstacle. I’ve considered adding some sort of an easy mode / skip option just for that fight (since 95% of all losses occur in just that one scene…) but I haven’t done that so far. Perhaps I’ve wanted to maintain a sort of retro feel where reaching a good ending isn’t always guaranteed.
I also originally had bigger plans for this game, but it quickly got so complicated that I decided to focus on the core elements of the story (especially the major endings). Unfortunately, the religious choices and deity relationships didn’t end up having a huge importance, and faith / Templar counts were what mainly mattered in the final chapter. Although perhaps it’s more easily replayable if it’s not too big/complicated!
2 Likes
Yeah, I get the retro appeal, and I agree! Shame to hear the deity relationship stuff didn’t carry more weight as you may have intended, but I figured it might’ve been a scope decision. Ultimately, I thought this game was solid for what it is, but if you ever decide to revisit or want to expand that side in the future, I’d definitely be on board. 
If I were going to make a list of games I’d love to see fleshed out more, this would definitely be on it. I think it could even have ended up on Steam if it were longer and had more character depth.
2 Likes
Yes! And I always get attached to my followers. I wanted to get to know them more.
Indeed! I was actually told in the publishing process that if this game was 150+k words long (I think?), it would certainly be on Steam as well - a comment that none of my other games received. I suppose that means it had a lot of untapped potential. Well, it did sell shockingly well for a shorter game in the end (maybe even a record for this word count?). I can only assume that as a much larger game it would have done explosively better (since shorter games tend to push away a significant portion of the audience).
My original plan was 100-200k words, too, but I ended up eliminating a lot of story elements to ensure that I could actually finish it! Perhaps you’ll notice that the pace of the last chapter is much faster than the first chapter… That’s because I was planning a far more complicated last chapter, at first (a bit like this game perhaps King of Dragon Pass on Steam ), but I had to reduce its scope many times until it was a very streamlined version of the initial idea. I don’t regret it that much since it would have probably never been finished otherwise, in those circumstances, but certainly it could have been a much grander project.
5 Likes