Divine Ascension (Out March 7) (High Fantasy)

[Zaldath]

As a Minor Deity, you’ve been given a large Domain of sapient beings to rule over as you see fit. Can you gather enough faith to ascend to a higher level of divinity?

Demo (Public Beta) link: REMOVED

I’ve finally tentatively finished this project that I started almost a year ago. I probably won’t make major changes to the story anymore, but smaller details and stats/numbers/balance adjustments are very possible (especially for the final phase of the game, which is by far the most complicated part!).

If you’ve already played the beta/demo once, here are some extra sections to look at (heavy spoilers in the achievement/ending guide - the poll titles can contain some spoilers too!):

Achievement/Ending Guide

Chapter 1: Simply play through the first chapter of the game.
Chapter 2: Simply play through the second chapter of the game.
Chapter 3: Simply play through the third chapter of the game.
Omniscient: Save as much divinity as you can from the start of the game (minimal consumption in choices), then spend 100 of it to observe the Nether when given the chance during chapter 1.
Hidden Entity: Investigate your Domain personally during chapter 2 and then confront the hidden entity within it.
Servant: After surrendering to another Minor Deity, choose to serve them willingly (Subicim (chapter 2) and Quanom (chapter 3) are the only options for this choice).
Nether Lord: Chase and defeat the Nether Lord at the start of chapter 3.
Pacification: Be neutral/friendly with Subicim and have 1200 Templars (choose high Templar investment and Guardian Deities to easily achieve this!) at the start (cycle 1) of the final phase to completely avoid being attacked by Subicim.
Subjugate: After defeating another Minor Deity, choose to subjugate them (if possible).
Erase: After defeating another Minor Deity, erase them from existence.
Survivor: Avoid being erased until the end of chapter 3 (Servant/Creator/Savior/Traitor endings are all OK).
Creator: Defeat Quanom in a divine battle to become a Creator Deity at the end of chapter 3.
Savior: You should aim to have 1200 Templars (choose high Templar investment and Guardian Deities to easily achieve this!) and be neutral/friendly with Subicim at the start of the final phase of the game (cycle 1) to avoid any attacks by Subicim. It’s also preferable to have the Divine Spear artifact available. Then you need to rush to defeat Fiel and Memmon before turn 15 (when Memmon’s Nether Invasion event begins and Asiel is erased) and help Asiel to defeat Quanom.
Traitor: Save as much divinity as you can from the start of the game (minimal consumption in choices), then spend 100 of it to observe the Nether when given the chance during chapter 1. Enter the Nether and become corrupted by the Nether Lords, then continue hiding your situation until you have the opportunity to betray the other Minor Deities without being erased in early chapter 3.

Which ending type did you reach on your first try? (if you’re unsure, you can guess the closest one) (it’s especially important to see how difficult the game is in the sense that if a lot of players were erased, something is wrong with the balance currently, and if practically none were, it’s perhaps a bit too easy as well!)

• Erased
• Servant
• Creator
• Savior
• Traitor

Should there be a warning text for especially “bad” or dangerous choices as there currently is?

• Yes, for all of them
• Yes, but only for those that lead to a sudden “game over”
• Never

How difficult did you feel the final phase of the game was?

• Very easy
• Easy
• Neither easy nor difficult
• Difficult
• Very difficult

Which chapter was your favorite? (note: there is a new unique illustration and achievement gained at the start of every chapter)

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3

Were you forced into conflict with one of your neighbors (attacked without any direct hostile actions from your side)?

• Neither
• Fiel
• Subicim
• Both

Did the Nether Invasion event happen for you (chapter 3)?

• Yes
• No

Which Divine Artifact did you choose?

• Divine Sword
• Divine Spear
• Divine Shield
• None

How would you rate the game currently overall? (1-5)

• 5
• 4
• 3
• 2
• 1

How would you rate only the final turn-based phase of the game currently overall? (1-5)

• 5
• 4
• 3
• 2
• 1

If you could change something in the game, what would currently be the main priority to fix/improve?

• Grammar / editing / writing issues
• Balance (too difficult/easy/etc.)
• General game mechanics/stats/flow
• Story continuity/logic
• Add new extra content/details/etc.

If you’re interested in trying my older Hosted Games, here are their links:

Dawn of the Sol Empire
Grand Casino of Fortune
Mage Elite

Any sort of feedback is very welcome - especially open comments and suggestions!

[Dragomer]

Pretty interesting, it’s fun to see a divinity game that went beyond one or two chapter.

[Christopher_Bull]

The only thing I complain about is not knowing anything about the other gods. It made it difficult to make choices about them. Also the final battle felt too easy against the strongest god. I felt his realm should of been more advanced and had more challenging defence.

[Ikem8567]

I didn’t see anything about divine artifacts how do I get one

[Lyle_Schiefer]

They are for your believers. When your head warrior asks for an artifact you can make one for a price.

[Lyle_Schiefer]

Definitely enjoyed the story not many divine sim stories out there. Tho I did find it a bit bland, lore, and characters wise. And maybe a few more mortal stories might be nice to build a better relationship between us and flesh it out a bit. Otherwise it was a nice read. @Zaldath

[Dragomer]

Yeah, I’d have appreciated some actual characters and a few more consequences for our actions, both beneficial and negative.

Like if you boost your templar too much, the most powerful of them form a kind of Pantheon of their own while you’re gone and it causes problems but you can also turn it to your advantage.

Or the sacred weapon you create get stolen or some agent of the Nether try to corrupt it.

And the immortal prophet you get through reincarnation come in a bit too late to do anything, a bit of a shame.

Or the kid you can randomly possess to observe your realm, the end of that part say they were forever changed by your possession but nothing came from it.

Also more diplomacy options would have been neat, especially since the last phase quickly devolve into doing either nothing because you don’t want to get involved into a pointless fratricide or just spamming the same convert / invade option a bunch of times until you win or lose in a pure numbers game.

[Zaldath]

Thanks for all the comments!

@Dragomer I must admit that this project was close to being abandoned a couple of times due to its story/structure complexities, especially in the last chapter, but I’m glad I was able to finish it, even if the result wasn’t quite as epic as I had originally planned. I had to eliminate some story elements to actually make it work, in the end, although the quality of the experience might have suffered too, unfortunately.

@Christopher_Bull You can know basic details about them from chapter 1 already, but you’re right that you won’t know their full motivations until around the end of chapter 3. It’s a difficult balance, because having that feeling of mystery is also interesting, and it can even be interesting to make choices with some uncertainty about the results, although it can be annoying if the results are the opposite of what you intended to achieve. As for the difficulty of the Quanom fight, what choices did you make earlier? The difficulty can vary quite a lot based on those. For example, if you have no divine artifact and low faith, you can easily lose there. But my intention was that it would be barely doable for the “average” player and somewhat easy with the optimal choices for that battle. Based on the polls, the difficulty level seems alright right now, but I’d be interested to hear about your situation in more detail for sure.

@Lyle_Schiefer @Dragomer True, I guess I have kind of the same issue here as what happened with Mass Effect 3 - it would have been possible to create countless new paths/scenes/etc. for the last chapter of the game depending on your choices in the earlier chapters. However, it seemed to eventually get so complicated that it was much easier to simply focus on the most important story elements and reduce the details as much as possible. The benefit of that is that the project got finished at all (in a decently playable state), but the downside is that it can feel like several of your early choices didn’t actually matter after all. and the characters also mostly served the plot instead of being very interesting/independents entities of their own.

All in all, nobody seems to have noticed any really major issues so far. That’s reassuring to hear since the game is close to being published, after all. I’ll have to think about the issue of adding expanded details/content to the game at this stage. I wouldn’t want to break anything or delay the release too much anymore, since everything seems to be working well enough right now - but that seems to be the main demand currently. If I were to still add a new piece of content to the game, is there a major preference for what/where/when in the game it should be?

About the polls: It was my intention that the game should lead toward the Creator ending “by default” and that it should be preferably too easy rather than too difficult. Both of those goals seem to have been achieved at the moment (50% reached the Creator ending & only 9% thought the game was difficult or very difficult). It’s surprising to me that chapter 2 was the favorite, since it had the least content/choices of all of them. I guess it was interesting to see the other Minor Deities directly? I was also surprised that the majority weren’t forced into battle with either Subicim or Fiel. My intention was that most players would be invaded by Subicim or, if not, attacked by Fiel. I guess players were more diplomatic/friendly toward them in general than I expected? The other polls were pretty much like I expected. I’ll have to think about the warning text result. I kind of feel like they are necessary in some cases, but perhaps there are too many of them right now…?

New poll:

Should you be forced into battle with Subicim more easily at the start of the final phase (cycle 1), or should it be possible to relatively easily avoid any early wars like now?

• Forced into battle with Subicim more easily (having more Templars and/or pleasing Subicim required to avoid an early invasion)
• No changes needed
• Should be even easier than now to avoid early wars

[Dragomer]

Congratulation on finishing that project despite everything!

[Zaldath]

Thanks

[Zaldath]

I updated the Dashingdon beta/demo version slightly. The main changes are these:

• It is now considerably more difficult to avoid Subicim invading your Domain at the start of the game’s final phase (instead of 1000 Templars, you now need 1200 Templars for Subicim to avoid the invasion, which can only be achieved by choosing both high Templar investment and Guardian Spirits)

• Removed a couple of not-so-necessary warning texts for choices that wouldn’t lead to particularly heavy negative consequences

I also relaunched certain polls in the original post and closed others because of this update.

[Robjection]

Had a good amount of fun playing through this. So far I’ve managed to get every achievement except Savior, and I don’t really know how I’m supposed to save the world from ruin because a) if I survive all the fights against the other minor deities, the Originator destroys the world anyway, and b) there’s no defeating the Originator in combat. In my attempts, I managed to figure out how to have all the minor deities’ relationship levels be at friendly at the same time, but it seems that, apart from Fiel and Subicim not initiating attacks against you in the final fight if they are friendly towards you, none of them make any difference at any point in the game.

[dumpling-clouds]

Loved the game so much!!!

One comment I have is that I wish there was more content and time we get to spend with our domain. The final warring phase came a bit too quickly for my liking haha, wanted to spend more time with our lil sapient subjects

Also, regarding the final phase: Is there any way to save Asiel from being erased? They seem to just immediately be erased after Memmon reveals themselves to be a traitor, Asiel was my fav other minor deity

[Robjection]

Speaking of Asiel, I find it funny how, when they first speak with you, you can choose the answers that are the most opposed to their goals and they still say you have many shared objectives with them.

[Lyle_Schiefer]

Speed through Fiel and Mem, before cycle 15, then join Asiel. That’s how you get Savior

[dumpling-clouds]

Thank you! Finally managed to get that ending with Asiel

Man, I know that this is really weird but I honestly felt really moved after getting the Savior ending… like… actually literally had tears well up and felt a little choked with emotion… idk but the connection we have with Asiel and their backstory and also our plan and the Originator’s final words to us and also Asiel’s words… it was written so well and made me really emotional for some reason

[Robjection]

Yeah, now that I got the Savior ending, I think it’s my favourite ending.

[Christopher_Bull]

Same that deity was my favourite. He was actually a good guy unlike the minor deity since he actually wanted to save the world instead of abandoning it.

[Zaldath]

New poll (related to the page below during chapter 3!):

The turn-based final phase will now begin. Various paths to reach an ending are possible, with very different win conditions and story elements; some endings also have a time limit (in turns/cycles).

There is no strictly right or wrong answer to most choices. However, being erased from existence can be considered “losing”, while being too passive (too few actions) may not end well either, as time is against you in certain ways.

What should be done with that text page for the final release version?

• No changes (it’s somewhat helpful to understand what’s going on etc.?)
• Remove it completely (it’s immersion-breaking etc.?)
• Modify it (how?)

Should the achievement/ending guide (see the original post in this topic!) be included in the final game, for example after reaching one of the normal endings?

• Yes
• No

@Robjection Looks like your problem was already solved! Do you think it should be easier/clearer to reach the Savior/Asiel ending? A lot of players reached it on their first try before my latest update, and less so after it (since Subicim is now more aggressive → harder to attack Fiel as required by that route…!), but my idea was that 90+% of all players would reach Creator as their first ending and then possibly aim for Savior/Traitor as “hidden” endings, so I’m not sure how easy I want it to be to get to Savior… As for diplomacy with Asiel, significant for that is also your reaction to initially seeing the Originator at the start of chapter 1 as well as your “greeting” choice at the start of chapter 2, so if you choose optimally in those, you have more leeway to answer Asiel’s questions less perfectly. It shouldn’t be possible to really go against Asiel’s goals and still get a positive attitude in chapter 2 (although in chapter 3 it’s possible to reach the Asiel ending even if you didn’t do well in earlier diplomacy with Asiel). In any case, I’m glad you liked that ending!

@dumpling-clouds Thanks! The Savior/Asiel ending is indeed intended to be a sort of hidden “true” (or “happy”) ending that you can reach with some extra effort, whereas the common/default/Creator ending is intended to be somewhat bittersweet/regrettable. Well, actually the Creator ending will be better against the Nether in the long term, saving countless more lives overall (in other worlds etc.), but since you won’t yet have any attachment to those unknown (mostly potential) worlds, it should be far more emotionally satisfying to save Asiel and your current world from destruction.

@Christopher_Bull It’s debatable which Minor Deity was actually the best choice, but certainly Asiel was the best option just considering this world’s inhabitants (and simply in terms of morals/personality). Quanom, on the other hand, would have benefited the inhabitants of other worlds (mostly potential future worlds) more and dealt more damage to the Nether’s forces. Memmon was obviously the worst choice both for this world and all others as well.

[Zaldath]

I’ve made some further changes to the Dashingdon demo… Feedback is welcome!

1. The introduction page to the final phase of the game is now simplified to be just the following:

The turn-based final phase of the story will now begin. Various paths to reach an ending are possible, with very different win conditions and story elements for all of them.

There is no strictly right or wrong answer to most choices. However, being erased from existence can be considered “losing” the game.

2. There is now an achievement/ending guide page at the end of the game, assuming you reach one of the “proper” endings first (Creator/Savior/Traitor/Servant):