I'm one of the mods over at /r/Subterfuge. If you're interested in attempting to 'save' the game in any way (crowd funding, mass promotion, petitioning, asking the devs to go open-source), come join/start the discussion we're having over on Reddit.

Here's the link to the discussion post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Subterfuge/comments/439qoi/if_youre_interested_in_keeping_the_development_of/

I've got 4 of my friends into the game, 3 of which bought L2, and 1 of which i know got another in with L2. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, keep spreading the word.

Could someone post this for me, since I don't have reddit (and don't want to have reddit either, unfortuantely):

'TW2000 said in the forums once:
"I've heard the Devs are implementing a new x100 speed version of this game, which is roughly going to take about 3 hours to play. Firstly I'd just like to say (if the Devs check the forums often) that if L1 players are allowed to play these games, that they should also be allowed to play both a fast game and a slow game at the same time. If not, many L1 players would probably resort to not playing slow games and just play fast games instead.

I had also been wondering about something else that I have seen mentioned in the forums a couple of times, which could be an addition to a faster time control. Many people have 'complained' about the unfairness of this game, and how you don't have much control over the aspect of diplomacy (not control as such, but rather just influence) as much as one has control over tactics and strategy. Other's have tried had to play against multiboxers. What I think should come with a faster time control is that a 1v1 be implemented. This would be designed to test purely skill and nothing else. The game board would be symmetrical and the players would have the same hire options as each other for each hire. The reason I suggest that it be implemented with a fast game mode speed is that with a slow game mode speed... I mean, has anyone ever played a 1v1? Like the person who starts out with a better outpost position and specialist hires will almost certainly win the game. However with this symmetrical layout and similar hire options you would really be able to test who can get the upper hand at the start of the game. In fact now that I think about it this could also be implemented into slow game modes (because L2 people might try it). But with slower games it becomes a test of 'who can check their game the most often' and so on, as opposed to 'who is the one that can outthink and outplay the other person'. So actually probably fast games would be the optimal choice here.

Ok, so 1v1 might sound a bit too unsocial for many, so another idea here is to implement teams, but only 2 teams (if there were 3 teams 2 could join together to destroy the other one). However this won't be as skill-dependent because you won't really be able to do anything about who is in your team.

Another thing that I want to mention (and I have mentioned this before) is to add a customisable time scale as a scrolling UI in the game creation panel. I think, however, that it should be implemented as a L2 feature so that buying L2 becomes even more beneficial and more appealing for L1s. It would just be a question of whether the cost of developing this option is worth the effort, because I can't see anything that can't be solved (e.g. the 10 minute timer for sub launch would be reduced to about 1.5 seconds at x400 speed, but that can easily be fixed by allowing a time period between 1.5 seconds and 10 minutes to confirm the launch.) When paired with the 1v1 concept, I think x400 speed games would actually work quite well, since you won't really need to talk as much in 1v1s.

Those are just my thoughts, any criticism/feedback is welcome "

How could open source actually work?

a) there's a second mod version of the app that has the fan-made content (I have literally never seen this on an iOS game).

b) the keys to the full game are handed over to the fans, and they make future updates to the game.

Honestly I think both of these are pretty terrible scenarios. I absolutely dont want the keys handed over to the fans, or within 1 day the whole game will be broken, and there will be 100 wildly imbalanced specs.

I think we need a committee...
STOC!!! Oh wait... No... Let's name it...
SIC! Subterfuge Improvement committee. We would take minutes and have to pass and any action with a 75% vote and send our minutes to the devs to make sure it is good intent then if we have a good enough coder they can get the go ahead to work on the game and submit that back to the devs who can upload the new content to app stores.

I like the idea of open sourcing but only to a limited amount of people. If everyone has the source code it would be a mess.

I would like to help in any way I can

r10t-- wrote:I think we need a committee...
STOC!!! Oh wait... No... Let's name it...
SIC! Subterfuge Improvement committee. We would take minutes and have to pass and any action with a 75% vote and send our minutes to the devs to make sure it is good intent then if we have a good enough coder they can get the go ahead to work on the game and submit that back to the devs who can upload the new content to app stores.

I like the idea of open sourcing but only to a limited amount of people. If everyone has the source code it would be a mess.

Well that really depends on how many people there are on the forums who can actually code.....
I wouldn't say it would be many. I can code, but only in C++, and I doubt they used C++. I might learn the language they used if they do released the source code though...

What I know of coding, is that its one thing to write code. Its an entirely higher level to be able to understand someone else code, and be able to change it without breaking it in the process.

And assuming the coder knows how to do it, making good design decisions is a whole nother issue.

Actually w2000, I think the game is written in C++

i don't see any reason for them to release the source code lol