Developer Blog

Massive Chalice, released by Double Fine Productions in 2015, tackled one of tactical strategy gaming's oldest challenges: save scumming. By introducing a generational gameplay mechanic—where warriors age, marry, have children, and eventually die—the game encouraged players to accept a precious character's death rather than constantly reload saves to try and avoid it.

Dark Clouds Behind the Innovation

Before diving into the brilliance of the generational mechanic, it's important to acknowledge Massive Chalice's context. The game was admittedly light on content, with what many players recognized as placeholder-quality character models and lite story. But this was Double Fine's strategy to survive a difficult financial period.

During this era, founder Tim Schafer split the studio into multiple smaller teams working on different projects simultaneously through their "Amnesia Fortnight" prototyping process. They would focus resources on the winners while quickly terminating underperforming projects—a harsh but necessary reality that saw casualties like the now infamous Spacebase DF-9. Massive Chalice survived this crucible, which speaks to the strength of its core concept even if the execution was limited by budget constraints.

Why Save Scumming Is a Problem

Tactical games like X-COM thrive on emotional investment into your crew. You customize them, watch them grow from rookies to veterans, invest in their equipment, and build narratives around their exploits. You actually begin to remember each one by name! This attachment is one of the genre's greatest strengths—it makes victories sweeter and the sting of Killed-In-Action memorable.

Save scumming creates a cycle of overly cautious play, where veterans are too valuable to lose, rookies never get developed, and deaths feel unacceptable losses rather than opportunities to adapt. The result? A game that loses its edge and emotional impact.

Massive Chalice's Revolutionary Approach

Massive Chalice solved this through forced generational turnover. Your heroes don't just risk death in combat—they inevitably age and die of natural causes over the game's 300-year timeline. Warriors marry, have children, and their genetic traits pass down through bloodlines. When a veteran dies (whether in battle or of old age), their children and descendants carry forward their legacy.

This simple mechanic fundamentally changes the psychology of loss:

• Death becomes inevitable. Instead of a failure, it's a natural progression.
• New characters have inherent value. They're not "worse versions" of veterans—they're the next generation carrying evolved bloodlines
• Long-term thinking replaces short-term optimization. You're managing dynasties, not individual warriors
• Save scumming loses its appeal. As one player put it: "Finally got around to playing this one a few months back, really enjoyed it for what it was. Only got squad wiped once. It felt shitty but since it's generational, you know you can bounce back stronger."

The generational system doesn't eliminate attachment—it transforms it. Instead of fixating on keeping Colonel Jenkins alive forever, you become invested in the Jenkins bloodline. Will his daughter inherit his accuracy? Can you breed that trait with another family's toughness? The attachment shifts from individuals to dynasties, from preserving the present to building the future.

The Attachment Trade-off

But Massive Chalice's solution wasn't perfect. By making death inevitable and routine, it reduced individual character attachment—the very thing that made X-COM's moments so emotionally powerful. When everyone's temporary, it's harder to care about Jenkins in the first place.

The game's limited production values exacerbated this. Generic character models and minimal personality customization meant warriors felt more like statistical bloodline carriers than unique individuals. The mechanical solution was brilliant, but it came at the cost of the attachment that made it defined the genre.

CSE's Innovation: Reincarnation and Waifus

Now that we've established the importance of attachment in tactical team-building, imagine the heightened emotional investment when we replace generic characters like Jenkins—and the entire squad—with captivating waifus. To address the issue of diminished attachment with temporary characters, Cosmic Succubus Evolution expands on Massive Chalice's foundation by introducing a reincarnation system. In CSE, death is not the end: fallen waifu warriors return through a mystical reincarnation ritual, retaining their unique personalities while incorporating generational progression.

In CSE's lore, Space Succubi don't truly die—their ancient spirits return to the Astral Plane and can be summoned back through a reincarnation ritual. When a beloved veteran falls in battle, you can breed a new body for her spirit, creating a new Waifu who will eventually undergo the reincarnation ritual:

"Like an orgasm, the ancient spirit enters the Syulibae's body during the reincarnation ritual. Merging of minds feels like opening a third eye that sees many lifetimes of experience. But afterwards, the minds remain separate, merging slowly over a lifetime and return to the Astral as one."

This mechanic gives us the best of both worlds:

• Death still matters. You lose immediate combat power and must retrain the reincarnated warrior from youth
• Characters stay unique. Personalities and bonuses from spiritual traits return, maintaining emotional investment.
• Breeding becomes strategically meaningful. You're not just enjoying a Hentai mini game—you're creating optimized bodies for specific spirits to reincarnate into
• Generational progression continues. Each reincarnated body carries evolved DNA from Harem participants, so total power progression doesn't reset to zero even as individuals cycle through life and death

The reincarnation system transforms death from a permanent loss into a temporary setback with interesting strategic implications. Do you rush the reincarnation to get your veteran back quickly but in a suboptimal body? Or do you carefully breed the perfect genetic vessel over multiple generations, accepting the wait?

Holistic Integration, Not Bolt-On Features

What sets CSE apart is its holistic design. Reincarnation isn't just a mechanic—it's woven into the game's lore and systems. Breeding, relationships, and rituals are integral to both the story and gameplay, creating a cohesive experience that feels natural and immersive.

Everything fits together like a puzzle. Massive Chalice showed us that generational gameplay could solve save scumming. Double Fine proved you could make players accept death by making it inevitable.

CSE internalizes these lessons: Keep X-COM Apocalypse's deep simulation and emergent gameplay. Add Massive Chalice's generational mechanics to eliminate save scumming. Layer in reincarnation to preserve individual attachment. Integrate breeding and relationships as core strategic systems. Wrap it all in unapologetic adult content that's not just tacked on but holistically a part of the experience.

When Subverse was announced, it felt like a watershed moment for adult gaming. Here was a game that wasn't hiding in the shadows—it was a AAA-quality production with actual voice acting, a sci-fi universe reminiscent of Mass Effect, and the audacity to be unashamedly adult. Studio FOW raised over $2 million on Kickstarter plus over $13.9 million on Steam , proving there was massive demand for exactly this kind of experience.

And they delivered on some fronts. The voice acting is genuinely a pleasure to listen to—professional quality that you'd expect from any mainstream title. The character designs are memorable, there's a clear love for the sci-fi space opera genre woven throughout and the humor, although excessive in a Deadpool type of way, which can diminish the immersive experience, is nonetheless funny. Traveling around the ship, interacting with your crew of Waifus, it genuinely feels like the adult Mass Effect we'd been craving.

The fall from Promising to todays 55% mixed rating

So then you actually play the game. First of all, the graphics didn't push any boundaries, but being last-gen tech wouldn't matter if the gameplay was good, however this is where the dream starts to crack.

The tactical combat—which was supposed to be one of the pillars of gameplay—ended up being a chore rather than a joy. It's oversimplified to the point where there's no real strategic depth. You go through the motions, clicking through encounters that feel more like obstacles between story beats than engaging gameplay systems. Where's the tension? Where's the optimization puzzle? The most sophisticated part was trying to position your units for a rear attack which dealt extra damage but this wasn't enough for deep gameplay. It became something I slogged through rather than looked forward to.

Now the Space combat, was a simple "Shoot 'em up" style arcade mini-game, which was actually fun, there wasnt much depth to it but there was a minor upgrade's system and depending on your choice of Waifu co-pilot, you'd have different abilities to deal with the baddies. Overall I found it an enjoyable reflex exercise but it's just that, there is no damage to repair between missions, ammo to restock, play performance didn't impact long term game state and you could always skip the mission after 3 retries.

And the adult content? Despite all the marketing around being an unashamed NSFW game, the actual execution is pre-rendered videos. Your only interaction choices was the speed of the video and when to end it by pressing "Cum". This isn't the interactive 3D experience many of us hoped for—the whole game is essentially a click-thru visual novel with some skippable cutscene/mini-game's. Don't get me wrong, the production quality of those scenes is high, but there's a fundamental difference between watching content and participating in it.

The Development Nosedive

Perhaps most disappointing is what happened after the Steam launch. The sales success didn't translate into accelerated development. Updates slowed to a crawl. After months of waiting, amidst the depths of Corona-induced lockdowns, half-baked game systems that felt like they were made by a single employee checking boxes to gain a bonus had arrived. The promise of a Mass Effect like game became distant as those months turned into years, and then one day out of the blue, boom, they slapped the "1.0" label on it and called it a full release, leaving me to wonder where all that money really went?

It's a cautionary tale: even with millions in funding and clear market demand, execution matters. And sustained execution matters even more.

What CSE Learns From This

Subverse proved the market exists. It proved that gamers want serious, well-produced adult content integrated with real gameplay. But it also showed where the pitfalls lie: simplified gameplay that becomes a means to an end, passive adult content instead of interactive systems, and development momentum that cashes out after reaching success.

These are lessons I carry into Cosmic Succubus Evolution. Tactical combat must be genuinely engaging—something you want to master, an optimization rich experience that leads to deep replayability. Adult content that is holistically integrated into the gameplay systems, not bolted on as cutscenes. And development must be sustained by passion, because without it, no amount of funding will matter.

Subverse was almost what we wanted. Almost.

There's a reason I keep coming back to X-COM Apocalypse after all these years. Released in 1997 by Mythos Games under Julian Gollop's direction, it remains the most sophisticated tactical/strategy game ever made. Not because of graphics or production values, but because of systems—deep, interlocking systems that create emergent gameplay no modern title has managed to replicate.

Sophistication Beyond Its Time

Where do I even begin? Apocalypse simulated an entire city—Mega-Primus—with multiple corporations, government factions, criminal organizations, a cult in bed with the alien nemesis, all with their own agendas, resources, and relationships. You weren't just fighting aliens and their spreading infestation in the shadows; you were navigating a political landscape where your funding depended on keeping the Senate happy while not pissing off the megacorps who supplied your equipment.

Speaking of equipment, the inventory system was a masterpiece of complexity. Each soldier had a limited carrying capacity based on strength and encumbrance. Every piece of armor had specific coverage zones—head, torso, limbs—with different protection values, and a durability counter which meant that parts of your armor could break durring battle. Weapons had firing modes, reload times and ammo types, including incendiary which can create a ever growing wall of damage to contain your enemies, and you can douse it with gas granades if it gets out of hand. You had to think carefully about loadouts, balancing firepower, mobility, and protection.

And the air battles? If you only played the modern XCOM's, then you missed out on one of the most thrilling aspects of Apocalypse. You had to manage your vehicles inventories, packing them with equipment and not just weapons but electronic equipment for accuracy, countermeasures and more, there were even engine upgrades. This is very important if you want to be efficient, for example, sure you can try and buy an expensive Hawk Air Warrior to duke it out with the UFO's, trading blow-for-blow, and you'd probably break your wallet in repair bills doing so, or you can just buy some inexpensive hoverbikes, slap on some engine upgrades and watch these mosquitoes slowly take down UFO's hundreds of times their size because their too damn fast to hit!

By the way, being a serious simulation, every projectile from every vehicle was simulated and every building was destructible. You could actually position your hoverbikes in front of a hostile corp and taunt a UFO to shoot it, the incoming fire would often miss and have a chance of hitting the building instead, sometimes collapsing it and encouraging the enemy corp to "reevaluate" their political stances as a result!

The game even had planned features for political assassination quests and multiple alien dimensions to explore before budget and time constraints forced cuts. Imagine that—a game from 1997 that was trying to be even MORE ambitious than the already staggering scope it achieved. They ran out of runway, not vision.

The Grenade Catch: Gaming's Greatest Mechanic

Let me tell you about my favorite gaming memory of all time.

In X-COM Apocalypse, when an alien threw a grenade at your soldier, you could catch it. Not through some quicktime event or random dice roll—through actual reaction time and positioning. In realtime mode, which despite criticism was actually a very good and intuitive way to play, if you were fast enough to pause the game and the granade was close enough, then you'd equip it and throw it back at the enemy ASAP!

The satisfaction of such a save, watching it arc back toward the alien that threw it—was pure gaming bliss.

But here's where the sophistication really shines: sometimes you'd fail to catch it in time and it would explode at your soldier's feet, damaging their leg armor, maybe causing serious injuries that required another squad member to rush over with a medikit. Suddenly you found yourself needing to ration armor pants in battle, and later other parts of armor too, and as the damage on your soliders accumulated, you'd need to consider who to pull back from the front line to try and save everyone.

This wasn't scripted. It emerged from the simulation. Every bullet had a trajectory. Every piece of armor had coverage zones. Every wound had consequences.

An Optimizer's Dream

The whole experience of rationing limited ammo, armor, and managing weakening soldiers against an overwhelming alien horde, and still emerging victorious through skill and optimization... it was an optimizer's dream come true.

You learned the systems. You understood that brainsuckers would run and jump at your heads, so you set your weapons to full auto for the melee and mowed them down. You knew how an Enzyme missile looked and that it would eat away your armor, so you quickly took off the armor before impact to spare it. Experience made you better—not because of XP points, but because you got better as a commander, you understood the simulation and could plan accordingly.

The Modern Tragedy: Streamlining the Soul Away

And then came the modern "reimaginings."

Jake Solomon's XCOM (2012) and its sequels stripped away almost everything that made Apocalypse special. Instead of simulation, we got dice rolls. Instead of 5 piece armor sets and complex loadouts, we got a simple weapon&armor selection screen, no need to think about ammo or armor durabilities. Instead of simulating how bullets break the environment and then potentially hit your soliders armor plates, we got ability cooldowns and cover bonuses. Instead of emergent gameplay, we got scripted missions on a countdown timer.

Don't get me wrong—those games are competent. They're polished, and to Jake's credit, I know he pitched two more complex versions of the X-COM sequel but was rejected before succeeding on the third, streamlined proposal. Regardless, these new X-COM's, they're not sophisticated.

The dice roll approach bothers me on two fundamental levels:

• It replaces skill with luck. When a point-blank shot misses, or when a 95% shot misses three times in a row, it doesn't feel like you made a mistake—it feels like the game cheated you. Your decisions mattered less than random number generation.
• Dice rolls are opaque while simulations are intuitive. In Apocalypse, with enough experience, you could predict outcomes. You understood that this angle of fire would hit, that this cover would protect. The simulation was learnable. Dice rolls keep the commander guessing regardless of skill level—a 95% chance feels the same whether it's your first mission or your hundredth.

Even the Founder of the Genre Moves On

Perhaps the most disappointing development is that even Julian Gollop himself—the creator of X-COM Apocalypse—seems to have lost interest in that style of deep simulation. Phoenix Point, his proposed spiritual successor of Apocalypse, is in fact more like a spiritual successor of Jake's streamlined modern template. Simpler systems, percentage-based shooting (though with a ballistics twist), ability-focused combat. Meanwhile his most recent project, is a cartoon style game that takes a completely different direction to Apocalypse.

I understand why. These streamlined games sell better to an audience that became increasingly mainstream since 2000, where as in the 90's, few people except hardcore nerds owned computers. But why not rather educate the audience instead of dumbing down games? wouldn't there be more joy in mastering a complex game and becoming a better tactician along the way than beating a simple game and learning almost nothing?

Perhaps all we really need is a gentler learning curve with more guidance rather than dumber games.

Why CSE Exists

This is why I'm making Cosmic Succubus Evolution.

Those memories of catching grenades, of learning intricate systems, of feeling like a genuine tactical commander rather than a dice-roller—they fuel my drive to create something that recaptures that magic. CSE aims to be a sophisticated tactical/strategy game in the tradition of what Apocalypse was trying to be.

Real simulation over dice rolls. Emergent gameplay over scripted encounters. Systems deep enough to reward hundreds of hours of mastery, and I'd rather teach players how to master them than dumb them down to the lowest common denominator.

And yes, with unapologetic adult content woven throughout, because we're adults who want complete experiences.

The GOAT showed us what was possible. It's time to build on that legacy.