That Which Sleeps Is An Evil God Game On Kickstarter
Black & White without the White
That Which Sleeps is a great idea for a strategy game: you're an 'awakening evil', an old god long forgotten who is now trying to regain control of the world. To do so, you must send your disciples out to spread famine, plague and corruption, all while deceiving everyone into thinking that this is the status quo.
A documentary game, then. It's on Kickstarter and already $8,801 towards its $12,000 goal, and there's a trailer below.
All strategy games are ultimately about numbers and systems, but those I like best have personality in their races, leaders and AI. That Which Sleeps seems primed to satisfy me. From the Kickstarter page:
The player must balance an aggressive approach utilizing his considerable power and eager hordes with the need to remain unknown to the Champions and Heroes of the world. This allows for multiple play styles and various meaningful decision paths - all made more unique and re-playable due to the large cast of available agents and awakened demons aka "Ancient Evils". In addition, the world is customized at the beginning of the game as you explicitly lay out how you were sealed away, and what methods you used to manipulate the world in your slumber.
There's also more information about some of the game's ancient evils, including plenty of obvious Cthulhu-inspiration. Every part of the game should be moddable too, so you can add your own dark ones to the roster after release. Start with Horace.
My favourite thing to do in any strategy game - in any game, really - is to lie or deceive. That's why I betrayed every alliance I ever formed when we played Neptune's Pride. It's why Jim, John and the others I play D&D with only this week discovered that my warlock's powers require a regular, supernatural sacrifice. Even when there's no point to it, having a secret is a self-set challenge that can make a game more exciting. I love the idea therefore of trying to trick and deceive an AI world through softly-softly malevolent actions.
$10/£6.13 gets you a copy of the finished game with an estimated release date of March 2015, while the significantly more expensive $50/£30.67 will net you earlier beta access.
There's a That Which Sleeps site, but if you want more detail on what the game will offer, you'd be better off reading the team's development blog over at TIG Source.