Outcast Mode

In the next version, losing at the Shelter/Refuge won't take you to the game over screen, you'll instead be kicked into outcast mode. Additionally, you'll also be able to chose to start as an outcast with absolutely no Arkhe or Merits to make the game even harder if you wish.

Outcast mode will be a more traditional approach to text adventures in that you'll be presented with events and choices based on your stats and a set of randomized variables to keep things fresh and replayable.


When you are an outcast, the game and its world will go on, but you won't have a base of your own. You'll end up drifting into any of the available territories, where you should try to keep a low profile, make a living and procure yourself a new centre of operations. Lobbies and units will continue to do their stuff, but you won't be able to interact with them directly.

Whenever you don't have a base, the population bar will switch to one showing you willpower or mental resistance, I haven't chosen a formal name for it yet. This will equal to your Terror value and will be replenished or spent depending on your actions. If it reaches 0, your character's will to continue will be lost, he or she won't care about anything anymore, and you'll lose the game. Additionally, some of your actions will still increase the local tension value and enemies might still come looking for you if it is too high. Losing once again when you are an outcast will result in capture and the usual game over.

Each turn, instead of getting the usual list of actions (correspondence, territories, etc.), you'll be presented with a random event and given a series of options. If you are an outcast in Alchrousse's Estate, for example, you'll be conscripted into the militia. You'll then be given tasks such as field work, bullying nearby smallholders and such.

The events have several visible and invisible environmental variables that will change the outcome of most decisions. Some of them will be randomized, while the player will be able to change others with his or her own actions. That means, among other things, that some times some of the individuals will like you more or less, and sometimes certain escape routes won't be available.

Some of the situations  in which you might find yourself will be quite benign. You might end up working as an assistant in a workshop or something like that where your risks are nearly zero. But in other cases you might not be able to get out of the place at all, specially if you are a soft-bellied governor. If you start as an outcast, however, your starting stats will be even higher than those of an adventurer, so you'll have a fair chance to get a place somewhere and make it to the regular game mode.

The outcast mode must remain, after all, a punishment for losing your base, so you can't expect it to be completely fair.

There will occasionally be, however, strategic reasons to become an outcast. Your Merits and Arkhe will be reset to 0, which will suck if you are waist-deep in cash and well respected. If on the other hand you are in debt, your debts will also be cancelled, so you might want to consider allowing some enemies to take over your shelter and your debts if you find yourself in an extreme situation.


Now, writing the outcast events for each of the territories will take a while, but I think the effort will be worth it. Be forewarned that even if I manage to write the events for each territory in one or two days each, this will be a months-long endeavour, and of course I can't realistically expect to have available free time every day for months in a row. I also want to avoid pushing myself too hard so that I can take enough time to make every territory interesting to play as an outcast.

In any event, other features will slip in from time to time, politics for example will be definitively expanded in one way or another. I'll also start going over the history of each city and protectorate in lore posts during those periods in which I have no new development to report as well.

I remained so relatively secretive about the outcast mode, labelling it simply as "Something listed in the Development Goals" for almost a week because I had the feeling I was biting more than I could chew this time. I was considering for a time to just drop it and start something else instead. I'm basically making a small semi-procedural cyoa story for each of the fifty-odd territories after all, but I do believe I can pull it off with a little patience.


Still, if the whole thing takes too long, I'll look for a way to release early testing versions, even if they temporarily limit the number of available terrains.