Alliance of the Sacred Suns 
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A New Year, A Comprehensive Update on AllianceJan 15, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve had an update, so this will be a pretty comprehensive one. This was a very tough document to write, and has gone through many revisions and pauses, but what you’re reading now is the end result. Be warned this will be a very long blog. First of all, I’m truly sorry I haven’t been more communicative across our various channels. Frankly, I’m quite glad to finally be writing this, as it will explain a lot of questions I’m sure many of you have had - I can finally answer most of them! I’ll start with the lead: Although we have been in negotiations with several major publishers - you would instantly recognize any of them - and in one case for over four months(!) we have not been able to find a publisher that will commit to the resources needed to properly complete Alliance. There is a lot of interest in the game itself - the game, per se, has never been the issue; the issue is the ability of a first-time team to complete such a large project. That not only includes the coding of the actual game, but everything that goes with it on the periphery: play-testing, balancing, in-game documentation, optimization, bug-fixing, etc. As a result, I have allowed our team to pursue other projects for now. I don’t know how long it will take to find a publisher, and it’s not fair to them to keep them ‘on the hook’ with such uncertainty. They understand the situation and we will remain in touch. So how did we get here, and what’s the plan going forward? I’ll address how we got here shortly, but I want to get to the plan for those who don’t want to wade through an extended in-progress mortem. Over the last 8 months or so, I have been working a lot on my professional programming and engine skills (Alliance uses Unity) and have been working on certifications both with Unity and Microsoft to become truly proficient on a professional level - I’m essentially self-taught and this approach has left me with a lot of gaps in my knowledge, gaps that I haven’t really needed to fill until this year. So I’ve plunged into it, and I can say that my knowledge and abilities have grown to the point where I can essentially continue to work on Alliance myself - most of the key systems/UI/art/program structure is complete, so it’s really a matter of continuing to extend, polish, and test what’s there. But my focus right now is on a project that I’ve had on the backburner for a while, called Boss Slayer: Zero. It’s a game that I designed originally as a board game, then extended the system and story to fit a world I had in my mind around this game. It’s currently in advanced prototype status, programmed using Unity 2023 LTS, and most crucially, is a project that was organized and developed from the ground up the ‘proper’ way - with a paper prototype, a small testbed for the main concepts, a full (and living) game design document, and a planned, incremental approach to building and expanding the game. What is Boss Slayer: Zero? It’s basicall...January 2024 Dev Blog: Military MattersJan 30, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday and are ready for the new year! We’re so excited for what the new year will bring Alliance, and we wanted to focus on the revised and updated military system - this will describe the updated system that we will be testing in preparation for our next public beta! Please note: All development blogs that discuss systems in progress are snapshots of the game at a moment in its development process. Depending on feedback, those systems, including the military, may change further before release. These blogs are a nice way for you to get ‘under the hood’ with us to understand why systems are designed a certain way, and why certain changes were/are being made! TLDR: This system as described may or may not represent the final 1.0 release system! ALL IMAGES in this blog are APPROVED DESIGN MOCKUPS that represent the look of the final UI. They are NOT screenshots. THE BASICS {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/312ca954b551ffc395062a7ee53479faef1c4f42.png First of all, and most important, we have removed the concept of having to create operations to do things in Alliance. We decided that this was way too complex for what players wanted to do, which was basically take some ships and attack a target. So we’ve streamlined the process by removing operations and Operation Points entirely. In the new concept we’re testing, instead of icons, ships are now actually represented as 3D objects in space, and can be selected either marquee-box style or through the Imperial Organizer. Once ships are selected, you can select a target - a ship/fleet, orbital, system, or planet; or you can select a target first and then add ships to target it, and the selected ships will act appropriately based on what type of ships they are without any further management from you! For example, if you select a scout ship, and then select a system, it will explore the system. If you select several missile ships and group them with some combat ships, and then select an orbital in a system or planet, the missile ships will attack the orbitals while the combat ships will intercept any ships that attempt to attack the missile ships. If you select several transport ships, and then select a planet, they will attempt to attack the planet with troops, and so on. The fleet will act dynamically depending on what type of ship it is and the target assigned, so as the player, you just select the ships, the target, and go! Command ships are still in the game, but are now optional to use. You can only deploy a command ship if it has an admiral. Admirals have up to 2 military traits, such as ‘Ground Specialist’ or ‘Bombardier’ that improve the relevant ship's capabilities as long as they are in the same system as the command ship. If the command ship is destroyed, the admiral is killed, so that’s a risk the player needs to consider! SPACE COMBAT {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ff2202edfcd29b41d4796e80b3f86ec2271e0669.png Combat and ship damage have been simplified as well,...December Dev Blog: It's Cold In Space!Dec 11, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsHello all! As we get into a cold December (here in the US, anyway) we wanted to share some of the exciting things we’re working on! First of all, we’ve made tremendous progress in updating the UI. Last month, I talked about the UX at length, so I won’t rehash the general concept, but let’s take a look at how the experience is being refined! Previously, you had to explicitly click on a planet to be ‘sent’ there, and then you’d have a bit of an overflow of information – it could be a bit intimidating, especially for new players, with a lot of windows and tabs that weren’t always easy to understand at a glance. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ab12a1caab6163409405f39502c0da6526289b7f.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/5d877dc049375dd6be5bd7bbf6817129a9fcbfb5.png We have decided to go with a more independent navigation flow within the stellar view, with basic information about a planet ‘fading in’ as you approach it with zoom. You can still click on it, but you can also zoom in on it and the selected information panel in the bottom-center of the screen will change to show that info, without having to ‘commit’ to the choice. In this way, you can zoom in to look at things like orbitals, orbiting fleets/ships, and trade without having to zoom all the way in. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ff5ef35973a37079e1191d7ef68209bdb3ea3eee.png We’re also planning to update the hover functionality and information for world-space objects, like planets, orbitals, etc. to allow for more intuitive interactions. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/6957b3ee9a5544fe07287dc6b141a1c52e51a370.png As for the planet view itself, it has been completely reworked. We’ve replaced our planets with much higher LOD models, which allows us more detailed views at close distances and offers an improved light/shadow scenario for all the different planet types The new curved wing panels allow quick access to stationary buildings and your planet regions. It condenses the critical information about regions and buildings into a readable format, and we think it looks very elegant. We’ve also added a planet action window so that, like systems, you can click on it and see everything you can theoretically do with a planet (even things that aren’t available yet). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/fd6137bfcfb52d02d10bd50a188bb13ce4a85e93.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/90c5274f428f76ba77bff98b606980ddbed31b90.jpg You will also be able to expand the lower center panel to show more information about the planet (or any object that’s selected, really), and select a specific info category (economic, military, demographic, or overview). This will open up a configurable window that will show information that you can hide,show, and customize as required. You can even have multiple windows open at once! For example, you can now see a planet’s economic info, demographic info, and the viceroy character screen all at once, closing and minimizing as required! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/29686b3e4e7975951c7282bea452b7c0324ce7e6.png {ST...October 2023 Dev Blog: News that won't scare you!Oct 18, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! It’s time for our quarterly update, but before I dive into what’s new (and there’s a lot), I wanted to do a bit of housekeeping: These blogs going forward will be increased to every 4 weeks since we now have a lot more cool stuff to share! We will be updating our demo soon, be on the lookout for details! First, we have expanded our team! We have added Josh Atkinson as a UX/UI designer full-time. Josh hails from down under and has been invaluable in updating our ‘look and feel’ of the game. You will see his influence in the accompanying screenshots. Welcome Josh! ICYMI: Because of the new hires and all of the improvements we’ve made this year, we also just want to reiterate that our release window is now 2024. User Experience improvements Next, I wanted to talk about our User Experience (UX). As most of you know who have been following the game for a while, the Discoverability and UX has by far been our largest challenge. Alliance has a lot of options available to the player, as well as a lot of data. Our challenge is finding a way to make these options easy to understand and access, as well as present data in a way that makes it easy for the player to find what they need without overwhelming them with a wall of numbers and/or text. Finally, after years of iteration, we feel that we have found the solution. The solution is actually in 5 parts: Right-clickable objects in the game that bring up a context menu to act upon A comprehensive, sortable, expandable outliner similar to other Grand Strategy Games that replaces a lot of our static data A unified popup window design that works like Windows: they are draggable, resizable, closeable and there can be multiple ones on screen at the same time An Action panel native to the main screen that works on System and Planet view that shows every action you can take with a system or planet, and if it’s not available, shows why not ‘Sticky’ tooltips that can be expanded with more information and data, to reduce the overall size of tooltips, as well as provide ‘tooltip within tooltip’ functionality {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/8bb0123f849f022c17aa7aa49b1ba4303454a4a8.png Let’s break these down in more detail. First, the right-clickable objects. Previously, when you wanted to do a Character Action, you had to open the Character Screen, go to the Actions Tab, and then select the Action category before you selected the Action that you wanted. While you can still do this, we have added the ability to right-click on a portrait anywhere in the game and a ‘quick action’ box will come up that allows you to immediately do certain things with that character, including firing them and performing an Action. You can also do this with Planets, Systems, Houses, Fleets, and your portrait. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/dc35a4e377384b68608e61c12cc5ae4a9910f0eb.png Next: the Outliner. Currently, we have data spread out across the game in numerous screens, and it’s not a very unified setup - it’s shown more by mode (...Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher SaleOct 5, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsHi everyone! Alliance of the Sacred Suns and other games published by Hooded Horse are all featured at the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Come check it out! Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale Spring Update - Lots of Awesomeness to tell!May 25, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsGreetings, presumptive rulers of the Celestial Empire! I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated the game status, but don’t worry - we’ve been very busy, and although there’s a lot of news, don’t stop reading - we come bearing gifts. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ae9a24e64c37f8bcd759b627b9ff3a359d363b84.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/1a9ca6244f921e56bd4f56208cfed38ecfc291aa.png First of all, we have spent a lot of time reworking the UI and UX to be… well, more fun to use, cleaner, and more visual. We have two recent examples of this. First is the Rank Map, which is selectable from the Nexus Bar on the main UI. This screen shows graphically the entire hierarchy of the Empire - viceroys, governors, and Primes can now be seen clearly where they fit into the Empire. And it gets better!! No more cumbersome ‘fire’ Actions or begging a House Leader to allow you to fill one of their Holdings - you can make all of your changes on this screen, through the magic of drag and drop! Fire a Viceroy, and drag a Courtier into their place. Promote someone to the Celestial Council from another House, and that House Leader may let you put your choice into their old slot! You’ll be able to see House reactions to all of your moves before you confirm them, and it will be obvious which positions are open and which are not (House Leaders have the final say on their Holdings!). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/159bf5a5e2c4f3cec6307405c82741fbefbb331d.png Next, the Epiphany Tree has gotten a COMPLETE overhaul. We wanted it to be more graphic and more dynamic - the nodes were all the same look, and it wasn’t clear how to move through a larger tree. No more! The entire tree of an Epiphany category is now available to see and plan from the start, and you can move, pan, and zoom in and out freely on the tree! Clean, clear, and more visual: Check! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/a909673bbd7c7699f2146922c972d4c2e1560fdd.png Moving on, we now have planetary and system Orbitals. These are built with Projects, but before there was no representation of them in-game. No more! Now, you can zoom in on all planetary and system orbitals to your hearts’ content, and see their status, and watch them grow as you increase their level in some cases! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/0062649805a6c10907ebdad67781a92a3e631250.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/d802839aaff126932d2d89fc51be88718c0a2f4e.png Next, Actions have been updated and revised to fit the new game systemsl. We completely scrapped the old Actions and added over 40 all-new Actions to better fit the theme of the game. We focused on how a ruler would use Actions - they would look to improve their own relationships with characters, undermine their enemies’ relationships, and interact with the other Great Houses for the bulk of their time, so that’s what we focused on! We also greatly updated the UI to show the expected effects of failure and success - what other Characters and Houses will think about this Action! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/12a7f...Nov/December Dev Blog - How Do I Win?Dec 23, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! Hope you’re all having a happy holiday season, and are looking forward to the new year! I want to talk about a very important part of the game: the Reign Score System, AKA ‘What am I supposed to be doing in this game, anyway?” When you start Alliance, in the 1.0 release, we aim to have the option to play either a Sandbox mode or a specific Campaign - these will have their own win conditions, special rules, etc. In the Sandbox mode - the only mode that’ll be available in Early Access - you’ll always start in 3050, as the newly-crowned, 18-year old ruler of the Celestial Empire. Your primary goal in Sandbox mode is simply to be humanity’s greatest ruler, and this is reflected in the Reign Score System. Your Reign is judged through your Reputation (Fear, Popular Support, and Power), your internal personality, and things that you do during that time. The more you do, the better your Reign Score, and the higher rank you can attain. Your Reign Score determines your final rank, from ‘The Forgotten’ to… well, you’ll just have to see! There are well over 20 ranks you can earn, as well as specific honorifics depending on your Reign Achievements. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/5d0d511b5a0a9496c5cf007481046a6ba735d190.jpg Your Reign Score has three components - you get some straight from your Power, you earn some by completing Reign Goals, and you can gain - or lose! - Reign Score by acting in accordance or in conflict with your ruler’s Values. The six Reign Goal categories are: Self-Mastery (goals that improve yourself), Expansion (goals that focus on expanding and claiming/connecting new systems and constellations), Security (goals that focus on developing the internal and external security of the Empire), Administration (goals that focus on planetary and Pop support), Exploitation (goals that focus on economy and production), and Discovery (goals that focus on science and stellar discovery). Each Tier I goal and most of the Tier II goals act as a tutorial for that area of the game - you will have several subtasks that will introduce you to the basics of the game, and when you complete them, you’ll gain some Reign Score as well. If you complete an entire category, you’ll be entitled to an honorific depending on the Tier IV goal you completed - different goals have different rewards! Tier IV goals are also intended to be ‘capstone’ achievements - they are not easy, and you will most likely not be able to accomplish all of them in a single reign! There are 4 Tiers in each category; as you complete a Tier Goal, you will unlock the next Tier and can then select a new Goal. The Value component of your score corresponds to your internal personality Values - Honor, Humanity, and Piety. Throughout your reign, you’ll do things that are considered Humane, Honorable, and Pious - but also things that are considered Inhumane, Dishonorable, or Impious. You will gain and lose Reign Score for these Deeds in proportion to your devotion to the relevant Value. T...October Dev Update, AKA All The Cool StuffNov 8, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! Steve here again with another exciting update - we’ve had a busy month, so let’s get right down to what’s improved and changed in Alliance since we last spoke! MASSIVE PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS We took a hard look this month after the last demo feedback at the memory and storage systems of Alliance. Some people who were running 8 GB of RAM were unable to play, or the game would partially load before timing out. We want the game to run on no more than 4-6 GB of RAM, with an integrated graphics card, and we want a consistent 60 FPS target on all facets of the game, including the UI. So we went back to the drawing board, and Brandon, our lead UI programmer, was able to use and integrate Unity’s Addressables system, along with intelligent resource pooling, to dramatically improve load times, game generation times, and most importantly, memory usage! The game should now run on at least a 6 GB machine, and we continue to work towards 4 GB machines as well. In addition, load and game generation times have been cut by 60-70%. This is the most significant performance update we have ever done. UPDATED MILITARY SYSTEM {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/b5623cfe04a8f0233f2ed8386deb7837794f2206.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/c4b58600f5f206461acd8d04d464442a2d02a438.jpg We have continued to work on the military system. It’s a little different from typical 4X games in that you are more or less fighting between elements of the Empire, and a war between Houses is basically a civil war. So we initially tried to frame wars as Challenges, which were civilized duels between Houses, and only one House could ever challenge another House. They had specific goals and win conditions, usually either territory or Warscore, and in theory seemed like a good idea. However, players found them confusing and restrictive, so we decided to more or less scrap that system and allow Houses to wage war with as many other Houses (including your House) as they like, as long as their Operations Capacity can support it. What we’ve done is streamline the process of war - all you have to do now is declare war against another House, and that’s that. Each House gains Warscore by destroying or doing things during the war, and that ratio plus each leader’s attributes and skills determines what peace options are available to end the war. Basically, the higher the Warscore ratio, the more ‘punitive’ options are available to a House to end a war, up to and including subjugating a House (if another House is losing badly) or claiming the Throne (if your House is losing badly)! We have also streamlined the Operations creation process, added a space combat viewer (so you can finally see your fleets in action), added Task Forces, added offensive patrols that also scout systems, added Inquisitor missions that gather military intel on targets, and much more! We will be writing a separate dev blog about the military system in the next few weeks, so be on the lookout! UPDATED TECH TREE {STEAM_CLAN_...New Beta Test Inbound!Nov 8, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHello all! It's time again for a new beta - it's been a little while since we had the last one, but we've added a ton of stuff on the stability and performance end, as well as more internal help! The beta will kick off this Friday, Nov. 11, and will operate in a similar fashion to other betas we've had - you'll need to sign a new NDA form even if you've been on one before. The link is here: https://forms.gle/H66v1agWEvEMAqVNA This is a limited beta, and we welcome both former beta testers and people who have not participated before! We are especially looking for people with lesser spec machines - 4-8 GB RAM and integrated graphics cards are OK, even welcomed, as we're nearing our optimization end and while we know the game performs great on high and mid-level hardware, we need more info on things like laptops and lower-spec hardware. So don't be shy! Once you sign up, if you have signed all the forms you will get an email with further instructions. Thank you for your continued interest in Alliance, and we're REALLY excited about our progress! Sincerely, The KHS TeamBuild your DynastyOct 9, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsIn celebration of Next Fest, Alliance of the Sacred Suns will be streaming on the store page. Come join us! Alliance of the Sacred Suns is a sci-fi grand-strategy RPG that begins with your coronation as the head of an interstellar Empire, and ends with your demise. Manage feuding noble houses and the schemes of would-be usurpers as you try to revive the glory of an Empire on the brink of collapse. Come join us at Discord: https://discord.gg/sQ3bWWv https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113400/Grand Strategy in SpaceOct 8, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsIn celebration of Next Fest, Alliance of the Sacred Suns will be streaming on the store page. Come join us! Alliance of the Sacred Suns is a sci-fi grand-strategy RPG that begins with your coronation as the head of an interstellar Empire, and ends with your demise. Manage feuding noble houses and the schemes of would-be usurpers as you try to revive the glory of an Empire on the brink of collapse. Come join us at Discord: https://discord.gg/sQ3bWWv https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113400/Do some imperial space politics, don't get deposed in Alliance of the Sacred SunsSep 3, 2022 - PC Gamerlliance of the Sacred Suns is a space-y blend of 4X and Grand Strategy RPG percolating out there in game land, and its developers have shared some interesting news about big changes to the core game ahead of its Early Access launch this year. They've revamped the in-game encyclopedia and tutorial functions, and beefed up the tooltips, to make the overall user experience better... Read more.Alliance of the Sacred Suns July Dev UpdateAug 4, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! Man, July was a long month, but we got a tremendous amount of work done, and we got a lot of great feedback about Alliance that we are putting to good use! In this blog, I wanted to talk about some of our feedback and what we’re doing, talk about the final few game play loops that we’ve installed, and showcase our in-game help system. This is a long blog, but we had a tremendously productive July, so here we go! First and foremost, the feedback from our third beta test showed that we needed to rethink our tutorial. We had a guided tutorial that ran alongside a generated galaxy, but there were 2 main issues with this setup: a) it was buggy - it depended on reading the dynamic generation galaxy and changing some static parameters after the game was generated to ensure that we had workable tutorial conditions. While it worked, it wasn’t perfect, and once in a while it could lead to issues, and b) people didn’t really like all of the reading they had to do. There were about 100 ‘nodes’ that the player had to read - and we’d only installed about half of the tutorial! It was clear that we needed to go a different direction, and when we asked for feedback, we found that people *really* wanted good tooltips, a good encyclopedia to look up stuff on their terms and needs, and a helper UI that gave them some information about a screen or concept the first time, and then it could either repeat again or the player could turn that information popup off (the information would still be available in the Encyclopedia). So that’s exactly what we’re doing! We’ve created dozens of unique tooltips - in fact, every single element in the main UI has a unique tooltip now! If there’s a number in the game, there should be a tooltip explaining it. We have also totally revamped the look and function of the in-game encyclopedia - basically, we’re converting the manual to be accessible in-game, with lots of pictures and links to related topics, so it’s easy to navigate. Finally, we decided to scrap the guided tutorial entirely, and replace it with a ‘quick start’ sequence where your grand vizier walks you through the most basic concepts (AP, Turns, Houses, Main UI) while also giving you several ‘tutorial’ tasks (now called initiatives, previously called milestones) that you can undertake at your leisure, but that will show you some of the most basic systems of the game (science, Projects, the economy, Actions with Characters) and then add some intermediate and advanced concepts (exploration, expansion, Challenges between other Houses, the military system, etc). In this genre, people don’t like their hand held, but they do want to have all the tools available to learn at their own pace, so we’re going to listen to the people! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/f5ce9d4cb2f429fe4a8374ebc8f01677cb88465f.png Now, let’s talk about the new exploration and exploitation loops. We have completely rewritten them since June. Basically, you now send exploration expeditions to a Sy...Alliance of the Sacred Suns News! Release Info, Closed Beta Signups Starting!Jun 2, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHello everyone! Steve here. I know it’s been quite a while since we’ve given a substantial update about Alliance, so I wanted to give everyone an update on the game, our next beta, and some information on some new and updated systems in the game. But… first of all, I wanted to share some very exciting information, and in doing so type some words I thought I’d never get to type when this project started almost seven years ago: As of the end of next week, we will have completed the core game of Alliance of the Sacred Suns. What does that mean? All core systems are locked down and are in the game, much of our new art, music, and characters are in, and 98% of UI updates will be in. And believe me, it’s been a long, twisty road to get to this point, but we are unbelievably excited to share that news! In addition, partially as a result of the tremendous progress we’ve made with the game since the start of 2022, we have made the decision along with our publisher, Hooded Horse, to forego the early access period, take some additional development time to put out a complete, stable, fun product, and sell Alliance as a 1.0 product from Day One, with of course significant support, free updates, and some fun features we plan to add post-release! We have not yet made a release date announcement, but know that it will be measured in months, and we fully expect to release Alliance in 2022. Now, before everyone breaks out champagne and credit cards, does that mean we’re done with the game? Not at all, but it does mean that the foundation of the game is complete and we are now able to start extensive testing on that foundation, while working extensively on the 3 ‘B’s of game development (bugs, balance, and betas). We will be working on the documentation - now that the game is locked in, we can complete the digital manual (yes, there will be a 300+ page old-fashioned manual!) as well as the in-game documentation (tutorial, tooltips, in-game encyclopedia). To that end, we are announcing our next beta! It will start on June 10, and will go for 2 weeks. If you are interested in joining the beta, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/ydifwouW3VFMVVT19 This will be a beta limited to 100 people, so if you are interested, sign up soon!! Due to the substantially new content of this beta, we are closely limiting both the number and what can be shared from the beta. As for the game itself, we’ve been very busy with updating some core systems, including how claims work, creating new colonies, science, promotion/replacement of positions, and the emperor system. Let’s talk in more detail about each: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/dfe2c9e0142cdc243aca66656e8fd4d65674a3a2.png CLAIMS Claims now are more streamlined - you don’t have to gather influence in order to claim a system, the process starts automatically when a system is explored by you to a high level though an Exploration Expedition. Once that happens, you’ll know all the planets in a system with medium intel - type, size, a...Alliance of the Sacred Suns at PAX EastMay 8, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsAlliance of the Sacred Suns was featured in Hooded Horse’s Publisher Showcase at PAX East. The publisher showcase revealed new content and announcements across Hooded Horse’s strategy games, including a special message from Alliance's Lead Developer Steve Hawkins introducing the latest visuals and content of the game. Alliance of the Sacred Suns can be wishlisted here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113400/ The trailers for Alliance of the Sacred Suns and the other games featured in the showcase can be found at the Hooded Horse Publisher Page on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/HoodedHorse Alliance releasing in Q2Mar 16, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsHey everyone! We’ve got a slight delay to announce for the early access release–from Q1 to Q2 of this year. The game is almost ready, but we’ve made the decision to take a couple extra months to really ensure Alliance lives up to your expectations. However, if you are eager to start playing right away, we also have some good news–we will be holding a final playtest in April, to iron out any final feedback before release. There’s no need to sign up in advance for this one–we want as much feedback as possible, so we’ll be posting it for all to download as a demo on Steam. This final playtest includes: All the reported issues fixed from the last playtest Several updated Nexus windows The entire Emperor System complete for Early Access (392 skills, 42 Emperor Personality Effects, 77 Oratory Moves, 81 Emperor Actions, new Guilt System) Many more Events A whole new main UI and Galaxy/Province/System view with seamless zooming and panning Streamlined updates to the Trade and Outpost systems Significant performance improvements House AI improvements New culture-specific music More House and Ruler art And more! Here are some updated in-game pics, showcasing our new UI! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/361b63622ac1809f58da7a9c96867ff13ef5315e.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/81e044f0d2c8386c975cabda9bf1df730a7f8ac4.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ed48c13bbe6772a946470e295b27828ce81ba663.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/2f8ef73ca13f4635db27915f28aebaab8d50fa6d.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/6d1d12f081879642300e45e6885209ce29b71a54.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/ea51d6162455aa625237bc6996888efb3abd9e2b.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/7e5cd619c611b64a1e72fa4ab8954d8c0685cc54.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/25874ac4d52d738aebdbe40d35e8554f862fe4b2.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/59baac3427a03c3a2dee8dca8a980051cc0cb966.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/e7c8d5b533b67bc5b1f4c442ba031b37c5e69449.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/03a4993c96248fcb511a41ce2acbb2fe541dfd7f.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35369177/a2cbe6460e34010b0d9b8b9d5659871bdb1c5cec.png We look forward to your comments, and we are excited to take this final step together before release! -Steve Hawkins, Lead Developer, Alliance of the Sacred Suns Alliance of the Sacred Suns Playtest and Release PlansDec 13, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsHey, everyone! Steve here, and it’s December. Here in Texas, it’s not really cold yet, but we’re still busy with moving full speed ahead in getting Alliance ready for release! Since it’s been a little while since I posted an update, I wanted to tell you in our own words what we’re working on, the state of the team, and some of the new game systems to look forward to upon release! First of all, we are delaying the game until Q1 2022. I know that seems to be a common thing nowadays, but I can assure you that we’re doing it for the right reasons. Now that we have a complete team of seven working on the game essentially full-time, we’ve made more progress in the last 3 or 4 months than we have since the end of 2020, and we’re moving faster every week! The game is fully playable and at this point quite stable (I routinely play 40-50 turn games every evening now as a quality check to check longer-term trends and systems) and much of what we’re doing involves things like optimizing the graphics and the UI (a major area where Unity has really helped us), adding some amazing universe art, balancing out the economy and costs of things, and especially the tooltips/help system, and we are completely rewriting the tutorial to just have a tutorial campaign that utilizes very little ‘hand hold’ as our previous version, and uses a guided campaign with goals, subgoals, and an overarching plot to keep players interested while they learn by doing- rather than by watching! Basically – we want to get the game right on release, and it is our full intention to do so! If you'd like to signup for the playtest we will be holding in January, you can do so here: https://allianceofthesacredsuns.com/alliance-of-the-sacred-suns-playtest/ So with that said, I wanted to talk a little bit about 2 major systems that are coming to the game – the oratory system, and the full Emperor system. Currently, when you talk to a character, and they decline to do what you want/need them to do, that’s the end of the story. Now, we have a fully integrated oratory battle system, complete with unique skills, a full strategy and move tree that you can unlock as you develop your Emperor (more on that later), and an expansion of character’s personalities and their relationships with you! Now, you will engage in back-and forth conversation based on moves that you pick from strategies that may or may not work, depending on their personality and your ability to say the right thing at the right time! Highly persuasive moves use Focus, which you can recharge by using a pause action, but each turn that you fail to persuade the other character lowers their Patience, and if it reaches 0… not only do you lose the argument, but depending on the power difference between you and the other Character, you may lose Power and an additional AP! You don’t have to enter the oratory combat, but if a character refuses you’ll have to find some other way to change their mind or improve your relationship so that they will ...Space Strategy Stream on Steam StoreOct 29, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsHi everyone! We will be streaming Alliance of the Sacred Suns footage on the store page, including some past broadcasts from Streamers and YouTubers Nookrium, Cringer, and ZergGirl. Come check them out!Feudal Politics in SpaceOct 23, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsWe will be streaming gameplay on the store page, as well as answering questions from players. Additionally, we'd like to announce our recent participation in Gamescom Asia. You can view our trailer alongside those of other strategy games published by Hooded Horse in the Gamescom Asia video below (timestamp 2 hours 33 minutes): If you are interested in our game or the other strategy games shown together in the Gamescom Asia video, please wishlist below! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1280190/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113400/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1176470/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/Feudal Politics in SpaceOct 21, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsWe will be streaming gameplay on the store page, as well as answering questions from players. Additionally, we'd like to announce our recent participation in Gamescom Asia. You can view our trailer alongside those of other strategy games published by Hooded Horse in the Gamescom Asia video below: If you are interested in our game or the other strategy games shown together in the Gamescom Asia video, please wishlist below! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1280190/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113400/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1176470/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/
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