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[Adeptus7]

"Dominion of Darkness” is a strategy/RPG text game in which the player takes on the role of a Sauron-style Lord of Darkness with the goal of conquering the world. He will carry out his plans by making various decisions. He will build his army and send it into battles, weave intrigues and deceptions, create secret spy networks and sectarian cults, recruit agents and commanders, corrupt representatives of Free Peoples and sow discord among them, collect magical artifacts and perform sinister plots.  Note – one game takes about 1 hour, but the premise is that the game can be approached several times, each time making different decisions, getting different results and discovering something new. Feedback is very much welcome. Very, very much.

https://adeptus7.itch.io/dominion

PS. This is enhanced and iproved version of the game "Dark Reign" which I publisged some time ago.

[Duuvian]

I tried the offline version. It's essentially a text game where each turn you choose options between raising influence with a faction, or recruiting soldiers from a faction. Interspersed are choices between turns of whether or not to pursue evil treasures or what-not, and how to interact with factions through manipulation or other means.

Spoiler: actually spoilers (click to show/hide)

 I made it to the end battles on my third or fourth attempt. At the end I failed to kill the human's newly inherited king after corrupting his younger brother with a seductress. Despite the insane villain party failing this classic Crusader Kings strategy the humans were still conquered due to being in a disorganized state from a substantial number of defectors joining me in the name of class warfare (I sponsored a demagogue) and I assume being surprised by a final boss out of nowhere. The elves capitulated and defected in large numbers to my evil army with no fighting after they committed regicide without me even asking, but the dwarves killed me dead.

I spent the game gaining influence with the three factions and avoiding attacks until I finally started recruiting troops from humans to use in the attacks but it was too late and unsuccessful to start a war between the factions; as well as a handful of the other factions' troops who loitered in the dark fortress until the end battles. The three factions were largely unaware of the existence of the evil overlord by the time of the end battles, with awareness scores of 1 to 3.

The human cultists were mostly unsuccessful in the minor attacks as I tried to get influence near or at 10 for the factions and skimped on troops; the minor attacks had one success out of I think three attempts. I did manage to get 1 demon and 2 undead by not having to use the health restore option at some points; I saw a quest earlier that required a demon in which I didn't have an option to accept the quest due to low wealth or whatever the requirement. This made the volcano in the backyard angry and resulted in MAGMA and a game over; a demonic pet-owner would have had the option to send it to fight the volcano or whatever lives inside it. Unfortunately the volcano didn't extort me again when I did have the correct type 'mon. Greenskin influence was neglected and declined to 1 by the end battle so I barely recruited any of those. I did get the greenskins some vargs to ride early on though, and also used foul magicks to enslave a dragon for the evil overlord main character to ride. Tragically the dragon died burninating the border fort in the first end battle; I chose that option as I had what I assumed was a small army. I accepted the offer from the mysterious patrons which raised the maximum magic battery charge limit to 6, and was surprised the cost was only the agent re-appearing to pilfer some of the main character's blood for health damage which could be tanked at that point since I learned in a short playthrough 2 it is wise to keep up the condition stat after dying just in front of the macguffin during a fetch quest.

Does improving influence with greenskins result in more recruits than focused influence and recruitment on one of the three factions? My human recruits were quite bumbling it seemed, except for the named death knight. He totally saved me from mummies in one of the quests and I gave him a bag of shiny gold. Oh, and he provoked a named dwarf hero into a duel where both took wounds, then befriended him before disappearing back to evil headquarters but somehow forgot to mention his blade had been poisoned, which killed the dwarf before he did any heroic stuff. The paladin with the magic sword was already misled into being an extra bad person through corrupting said magic sword into a mind influence device disguised as offering holy advice. The prophesized champion of good was discovered right as they started their intro quest and ambushed before they could level up. I gave the elf protagonist with hidden depths of power who could not be corrupted due to strong ethics a jewel that drives it's owner insane. The guardians of order's head monk Brock Samson'd my henchmen and thus escaped my unholy persecution this game, but I learned their secret in a previous attempt and they didn't do much that I saw after the quest failed.

One thing I'd suggest is a longer game mode option if that is possible with the mechanics. It was a fun game but quite short. The events did change substantially between playthroughs though so it's probably not necessary, I just thought after the dwarves killed me that it would be cool to build a bigger army over time to face off against a larger end battle army while trying to keep awareness of the evil incarnate down for a longer period of time.

[Adeptus7]

Thank You very much for playing and Your feedback!

"Does improving influence with greenskins result in more recruits than focused influence and recruitment on one of the three factions?"
Hmm, don't think so - at least it was not planned. Bigger Influence means chance of biiger amount of recruits among any faction. Maybe You just had bad luck with humans.

"One thing I'd suggest is a longer game mode option if that is possible with the mechanics. It was a fun game but quite short".
Yeaj, when I was publishing it, I thought it will be totally final version, but know I am actually thinking of next one, with reworked mechanics.

[Adeptus7]

The first video review of the game in English language was posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6f4UCEgWU

[Adeptus7]

Another reviews have arrived:

- Dad's Game Review (podcast): https://www.dadsgamereview.com/blog/

- [BOKC] BlancoKix (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNpSKToOSg

As I wrote, I am working on the next version of the game. It is done in 50% I think.
Biggest features are reworked system of Your Fortress management and infiltration of Free People's countries (including new, fourth country - Merchant League).

[scrdest]

I've quite enjoyed it, enough to have multiple playthroughs with different archetypes!

Unfortunately, I've also ran into some serious bugs. Most painfully, when I tried to do a proper conqueror run instead of infiltrating, the scene where human cavalry arrives didn't have any button to progress, only a save button... Which to be honest, is probably worse than no buttons, since someone can hardlock themselves out of that session altogether.

I also kind of wish the corruption styles had more impact? I thought some of them do, e.g. making dorfs greedy making them less likely to send donations, but then for example for elves the infiltration endgame text is always the same.

[Adeptus7]

Thank You very much! Can You write something more about scene where You found a bug? The best option would be just sending print screen of it, but if it is impossible, please try to describe it and give more details. It would help me to find the bug and fix it.

[scrdest]

Thank You very much! Can You write something more about scene where You found a bug? The best option would be just sending print screen of it, but if it is impossible, please try to describe it and give more details. It would help me to find the bug and fix it.

https://imgur.com/a/ouTopTH

[Adeptus7]

Thank You very much, You helped me greatly! Looks like this bug occured if player had exactly 8 Energy in this exact place. I fixed it already.

[Adeptus7]

I prepared big update. Of course there are many tweaks and fixes, and some new features like:
- harpies and serpentmen are now reruitable for Tempter character,
- new expedition to Witchlands, land once ruled by civilization older even than Your character,
- new possible way to victory by discovery of ancient secrets and accomplishment of the magical Great Work, including new endings,
- male Tempter and Warmonger can take a consort, which brings mechanical benefits and story elements.

Of course new content bring risk of the new bugas and problems with balance, so I am searching for playtesters. If You are interested, please write to me at: brat.dominik@op.pl .
(New features, mentioned above, are currently NOT avalaible in stable version of the game, published on itch.io).

[Adeptus7]

OK so there is time for the promised update!
https://adeptus7.itch.io/dominion

It contains all things I wrote previously, which means:
- harpies and serpentmen are now reruitable for Tempter character,
- new expedition to Witchlands, land once ruled by civilization older even than Your character,
- new possible way to victory by discovery of ancient secrets and accomplishment of the magical Great Work, including new endings,
- male Tempter and Warmonger can take a consort, which brings mechanical benefits and story elements.

But there are also some surprise, other elements I added in the meantime:
- choice of element your character specialize in. It has influence on spellcasting and unblocks some new events;
- new ways for defeating enemy kingdoms, connected with profession of your character.  Warmonger can initiate full-scale total ware between elves and dwarves, Destroyer of Life can start vampire apocalypse, Tyrant can summon hosts of angeldemons from Infernal Heaven and Temptress can seduce king Janos.

And of course many lesser changes, fixes and new events.

Some plans for the future:

- make elemental focus more significant by adding big questchains connected to it - e.g. as Water focused character You will be able to wake ancient sea leviathan and as Fire focused one, to create your own fiery "Mordor",

- add some new "final bosses" with which You will have to deal after conquering Free Peoples,

- add new special ending in which You go back in time to won first war (mentioned in prologue).

Many thanks for all people who pla this game and give me feedback! Please, remember to rate the game. Or if You prefer to support my creative process financially, I invite You to: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/adeptus . But still, feedback is more important than money!

Oh, BTW, I invite You to listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgkSmj55jl0
or read: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2023/12/17/all-children-of-the-mother-short-story/ "All Children of the Mother", short story featuring one of the characters You can meet and fight in "Dominion of Darkness". But beware of spoilers!

Happy New Year!

[Haspen]

I thought I was doing great...

And then I got my ass kicked at Krakengaard

I gotta try again, this is surprisingly fun

[Adeptus7]

Thank You very much for playing and feedback! I am happy You liked it at least a bit.