u/VIl_Inq

Hi all. We're opening up The Necessary Evil for a public playtest on the 24th of July and we're looking for playtesters.

The Necessary Evil is a dark tactical RPG with roster management and dungeon exploration inspired by Darkest Dungeon and a magitech steampunk aesthetic that draws on Arcanum. You'll recruit teams to send into the ruins of industries built inside a dreamscape to explore and extract resources. You'll have to carefully juggle resources and risk, often engaging in hex-based combat that runs on an Active Time Battle system rather than rounds (so saving AP can make your next turn happen faster, for example). The decisions you make shape how your characters and equipment can grow and even how the dungeon responds in future runs.

Afterwards, reinvest the resources you scavenge to teach your roster new combat skills, forge new equipment, upgrade your base, or exalt your characters, giving them access to new classes. Every decision matters, and every choice has a cost.

(Right down to naming your characters!)

If you enjoy tactics games like Wartales or Battle Brothers or RPGs with difficult decision-making, I think you'll like this game.

This is our first playtest, so we're looking for feedback on how the game is presented (it has a 2D art style with a grim aesthetic and some body horror) and tutorialized, and how it feels for a run or two of the dungeon. Should hopefully take around 30 minutes to an hour. Afterwards, if you could fill out a short questionnaire about your experiences, that would be great.

Sign up is here: https://forms.gle/RafugGR39jBfW2xe9 - please feel free to comment if you have any questions.

The Necessary Evil is a tactical RPG about making difficult decisions and preparing for the unpredictable. Lead "volunteers" into the dark and rotting recesses of the collective unconscious, colonized and industrialized and plundered for profit. Every decision matters, and every choice has a cost.

To participate, click the link below and follow all the steps to enter!

https://gleam.io/qsuVa/the-neccesary-evil-playtest-registration-giveaway

All 5 winners will get 50$ Steam Gift Card!

Please note that all the winners will be chosen RANDOMLY, and completing tasks will increase your chances of winning!

Best of luck to you all!

Proud of this one. From a loading station in my military production outpost, a train goes out to the blueprinted second stage, forming an artillery supply station that can support four also mostly self-assembling artillery FOBs and has a safe storage area for a tank for spot problems (for example, if biters take out some of my power lines). By shipping in resources and building shells in-situ, the train carries nearly 4 times the amount of shells as it could pre-assembled (though I'm only loading it with the resources for 150 instead of 162).

I've been refining this defensive strategy since the game released in 1.0. The tesla towers really helped the FOBs out, since they struggle handling massive reprisals (the main supply base is strong enough to shrug off basically anything, but I don't like using flame turrets for everything). It's still not quite enough without quality/high upgrades, but I'm hoping to test out the preferential target system. I keep forgetting to add it to the blueprint and losing bases.

No, it's not the most efficient strategy. I play exclusively deathworld with some strong resource constriction and some self-imposed strategic limits (most notably, I don't build grand walls or the like; all my outposts are as space-efficient as possible, and like I said I don't like relying on flamethrower turrets). Plus the artillery's fun, so I like using it to stake my claim.