“Hell is other people.” Trapped together in a small room, the central characters in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” gradually learn that being watched, watched, and scrutinized by others is a particular kind of nightmarish punishment. When you write about video games, it’s not often that you refer to French philosophy or the pains of psychological pressure, but you enter Solium Infernum, a new strategy game, set in hell, where manipulation and trickery are far more dangerous than weapons. . With influences such as Doom, Civilization and Dark Souls, Solium Infernum pits you against human players (although single player is still available) as you fight for the throne of Hell: Lucifer has disappeared under mysterious circumstances , and a new ruler of hell must be chosen. It all started in 2009.
“The original version of Solium Infernum was developed by the enigmatic Vic Davis of Cryptic Comet,” explains Ty Carey, co-founder of League of Geeks and (new) creative director of Solium Infernum. “It was an incredible achievement for an indie indie developer with no previous gaming industry experience experimenting in the ‘digital board game’ space. It was never released on Steam, only sold through Vic’s website was clunky in looks and interface, but there was a diamond in the rough.
“However, Solium Infernum hit the mark, with a core group whose love of board games, indie strategy games, and stranger things from hell seemed perfectly triangular,” Carey continues. “It was an experience that I really wanted to share with the world. So I kind of…I stalked Vic, a bit, sending him yearly emails asking him what was going on. with the license.When we had a team available looking for their next job, we started.
Playing as one of eight “Archfiends”, each with their own unique units and abilities, there are multiple paths to becoming the infernal ruler of Hell. Open warfare is an option, but diplomacy, subterfuge, and political bickering are Solium Infernum’s most potent weapons.
In our original preview, we saw how an entire deck could be knocked down in just eight moves, and without a single combat encounter. Imagine yourself as Machiavelli or, to use a more contemporary reference, Littlefinger from Game of Thrones. Solium Infernum’s strongest players will stay in the shadows, pulling all the strings without anyone else noticing.
“Solium Infernum is not about base building or direct conquest,” Carey explains, “but rather about strong political rivalry and intriguing machinations, where information and secrets are really very powerful, and the use diplomatic ‘moves’ to make rivals vulnerable it’s like moving forward
“The game allows you to get inside your opponent’s head, trying to overtake and maneuver. This is because all players enter their orders simultaneously, which means you need to be able to predict your opponent’s plans. It’s a serious mind game with a lot at stake. The question is, how loose can you be?
If you capture the capital of Hell, Pandemonium, and hold it for enough turns, you win. But there is another, more complicated system that Solium Infernum highlights, in which you can gradually earn the admiration of the bureaucratic Conclave and be anointed as a leader due to your cunning and manipulation.
Each player has a “Prestige” indicator, which reflects how highly regarded they are among Hell’s government elite. Push it high enough, by holding areas of particular importance on the map or scoring political points against your rivals, and the infernal House of Representatives will select you for Lucifer’s throne. However, suffer humiliation or fail to predict the secret plans of your rivals and your Prestige will take a heavy hit.
Let’s say you’re competing against two other Archfiends. You can offer yourself as a vassal to one of them, thus forming a pact and becoming part of their inner circle. In front of the Parliament of Hell, you can criticize or insult the other player, forcing them to accept your humiliation and lose Prestige, or respond to your disrespect with a declaration of war.
As long as they bite the hook, you will have managed to face the other two Archdemons. As they waste turns for nothing, you strengthen your army and head to Pandemonium.
“The core of Solium Infernum has always been a high-stakes psychological, diabolical game that you play against your opponents,” Carey explains. “It’s something that a lot of games try to accommodate, but they often seem to miss the point when it comes to the kinds of storylines that can happen or the way the social dynamics work. There are a lot of games out there. society that offer interesting social dynamics, or intrigue and bluff mechanics, but strategy games tend not to lean into these spaces.
“The original Solium Infernum was great for creating a social powder keg pressure cooker, and we wanted to capture that and even find ways to showcase it. For us, success is about people getting along in the background of their games, both inside and outside of their games, in terms of social engineering.
“It also fits the hell setting,” Carey says. “Unlike the chaos of fire and brimstone, Hell is truly trapped and navigating bureaucratic red tape. There is something evocative about having to present grievances to Hell’s parliament, or skillfully insult rivals in front of the Conclave The most tense politics seem to be carried out on the razor’s edge, waiting to turn into violence.
But, of course, total war is always an option. Each Archfiend has a personal legion, totally loyal to them. You can also purchase new units from the Solium Infernum bazaar, essentially an auction house where each archfiend bids for the allegiance of different demonic factions.
“There are a lot of hellish units out there,” Carey says, “with different balance stats (some might be better for ranged attacks than melee or sorcery, for example) and perks that change. They are offered through the auction house on a somewhat random basis, which means that each game you are going to see and face, vastly different legions.
Solium Infernum also has a persistent “surrounding map”. True to the classic view of hell, where the rules of physics and reality no longer apply, the world of Solium Infernum almost resembles a small sphere: if an enemy is mounting legions to the east, move you far enough and the same legion . be to your west There is nowhere to put your back against the wall, there is no possibility of reinforcing yourself in an impregnable position. Hell is other people. In Solium Infernum, your enemies are constantly surrounding you.
“Playing Solium Infernum has been described as ‘losing yourself in the cold glory of a tough decision,'” Carey says. “We call it The Strategy Game from Hell, or sometimes jokingly the ‘Dark Souls of Strategy’, because it puts you in a very difficult and heartbreaking position. The screws are really tightening around you; after all, we are in hell.
Although single-player mode is available, the crux of Solium Infernum is its slow-burning asynchronous PvP. Each player can enter their turn, then leave the game and wait for their opponents. No one knows what others are doing until the round is over: log in, make your move, then log back in the next day to see what others have done and decide how to react.
As a long-running correspondence chess game, in addition to allowing time-strapped players to enjoy expansive strategy games, it reinforces Solium Infernum’s emphasis on planning, cunning, and political intrigue. .
“There aren’t many games that offer a long-lasting asynchronous gaming experience,” says Carey. “We coined the phrase ‘sleep pattern’, which means the game would stay with you after you closed it; you would be thinking about your next moves and your opponent’s plans, lying in your bed awake at night.
“It also gives you the ability to regularly play short rounds in the game, which is great if you don’t have time to play for several hours, although you can do that as well. You’ll get an alert that your turn is ready, then you’ll log in and take your turn, which can only take a few minutes if you’ve already thought of your plans ahead of time.
While there’s no release date for Solium Infernum, 2023 will see the release of the game’s tech demo, which League of Geeks says will provide live feedback from potential players. You can participate via Solium Infernum Discord. League of Geeks also publishes regular dev diaries on Steam, where you can already add Solium Infernum to your wishlist.
“There’s something special about Solium Infernum that you risk unraveling when you take it apart and put it back together, even with the best of intentions,” Carey says. “We look for the most obvious forms of friction, confusion or complexity, and see if there is a gentler method: looking through a lens of modern design, using an additional decade of game theory that has elapsed since the release of the original Solium.
“The new Solium Infernum will have its own unique feel. It will be different, but that’s okay. And not knowing exactly what that feeling is going to be is really exciting.”
If you’re looking forward to Solium Infernum, in the meantime, check out some of the other best 4X games. You might also want to try some great real-time strategy games, or maybe the best grand strategy games on PC.