Tactics Game Online

Its difficult to discuss the character design without consideration of the battle system.  The battle system describes the interaction between the characters, and fulfills the purpose for every character trait chosen.  Since the emphasis on this tactics system is to keep things as simple as possible, so new players can pick it up quickly, the battle system must incorporate the most intuitive rules possible.

Some important elements that must be considered in a turn-based tactical battle system are:

• When each character gets to take it’s turn (character sequence)
• If temporary states-of-being (status effects) are implemented
• If each unit can execute more than one type of action each turn

Character Interaction

Lets start with character sequence.  There are several ways to determine character turn order.  One of the most simplest is to chose the character order randomly at the beginning of the battle.  This queue then repeats itself each game turn.  Another approach is to incorporate a character trait dedicated to determining it’s turn order.  I call this character trait initiative.  Since we are going for simplicity and this trait has the possibility of being avoided my vote is to do just that, avoid it.  Yet another approach is to allow each player to set his unit queue during army creation/modification.  This empowers players to determine unit turn order.  The final and perhaps most attractive approach gives players complete control over when each gets to take its turn in battle.  This approach operates simply, players alternate turns: one player moves all of his units in whatever order he chooses, then his turn ends, and the next player takes his turn with all his units, in whatever order he chooses.  This approach gives players the most strategic empowerment, and may be one of the most simplest methods available.  In addition to all of these variations for unit turn order, a final question arises as to whether players should alternate turns on an individual basis or a complete army basis.  If one player starts with more units then another, it is obvious that some of his units will get to act consecutively once-in-a-while.

Getting back to the major areas of the battle system, the second topic is that of status effects.  These are temporary changes to a character.  Examples of status effects are being stunned, poisoned, strengthened, or weakened.  The purpose of status effects are to expand the opportunities for unique interactions between characters.  They open the door for characters to invoke special qualities to others, and enhance character uniqueness.  One of the greatest pitfalls of status effects are their potential to also increase game complexity.  Does this large pitfall outweigh their advantages?

Finally, when looking at the battle system, the question must be asked as to whether characters have multiple options at their disposal then performing their action each turn.  This dramatically affects the depth of each character, and in turn influences its importance to the players army as a whole.  Logically, this in turn sets the relative size of player armies in their entirety.  Ultimately, we want to allow players to be able to have armies that have a variety of options at their disposal, and strengths and weaknesses.  This goal can be reached by giving each unit more options, or by limiting each unit to one option and increasing the army size appropriately.  One of these options allows us to minimize character traits, which elevates it above the other when trying to meet our simplicity goal.  Can you guess which?  If you guessed limiting options to one choice on a unit basis, you are correct.  Giving units only one type of action to perform makes skill/stamina points unnecessary.  It also allows range and splash to be on a unit basis, and not on a unit action basis.  This greatly simplifies unit complexity.  By increasing army population, we can relieve the drawback of this approach.

Character Attributes

Rather than bury you in a sea of questions regarding every aspect of this tactical, turn-based game development, I thought it would be a good idea to share of the thoughts I have been having regarding details of the characters.  I have always been a point-based character fan (refer to yesterday’s post for details).  It creates an even playing field for entry players as well as veterans, who have been playing for a while.  Everyone has a fair chance, using the same amount of points as everyone else to build their army.  One of the questions to ponder is the genre of this game, but that has no effect on the core character elements.  I am more of a fantasy medieval genre lover, so these thoughts encompass this kind of environment.

First, lets discuss some goals of the characters in this tactical online game.  The characters need to be:

• Easy to understand
• Quick to customize
• Extensible, offering variations and more options over time

Game characters are the sum of their attributes.  To meet the need of quick and easy to understand, we should minimize the number of attributes needed to describe each character, while also allowing for unique qualities to be given to characters that make each unique.  With these thoughts in mind, here are some of the attributes I propose:

• Health Points – The amount of damage a character can sustain before death
• Strength – Determines the amount of damage this character inflicts with attacks
• Speed – How far this unit can travel each turn
• Range – Distance from potential targets this character can attack
• Splash Area – All characters within this distance from the target are affected

Some optional attributes that may also be incorporated are:

• Initiative – How quickly this character acts, which determines when it gets its turn
• Defense – How much damage this character absorbs from attacks before health points are drained

In addition to attributes, each character can have a type associated with it:

• Fighter – These units use close-range weapons to attack enemies
• Archer – These units use long-range weapons to attack enemies
• Mage – These units use long-range magic to attack enemies
• Clerics – These units use healing magic to restore allies

Finally, each character can have 2 to 4 ability slots, giving them special powers, limited by the type it is.  For instance, the fighter would have abilities available to it that relate to enhancing fighter-type attacks, and defense too, of course.

So, there are a variety of choices the players would make for each character they add to their army:

• Character type
• Each attributes value – raising these costs points / reducing them gains points
• Abilities – adding these costs points

Tactics Game Characters

One of the most pivotal areas of tactical, turn-based games, that largely influences the general gameplay and player involvement, is the characters themselves.  Take Final Fantasy Tactics, for example.  In this game, players begin with a couple of characters, starting out weak, and developing these characters as the game progresses.  This approach to character development is what I call experience-based character development.  After each battle, the characters gain levels, and in turn unlock more powerful skills and abilities.  They also find treasure as they progress, giving them more useful equipment, items, and weapons.  You could also call a game like Final Fantasy Tactics an RPG, or role playing game, in which the characters go through a story and develop and grow as they travel around in an epic adventure.

The alternative to allowing characters to develop by acquiring experience is to use a point based system.  In this approach, each character, as well as each skill and equipment and benefit characters can receive, are assigned a point value.  Players assemble their armies by spending a set amount of points to create evenly balanced armies.  Tactics 100 is such a game that implements this type of system.

There are advantages to each, as you may surmise.  Experience-based approaches allow players to invest more time and effort into developing their perfect army.  Every battle makes their army stronger, and levels up their characters.  An obvious disadvantage to this approach is that it does not guarantee fair battles.  A more leveled up army has an obvious advantage over a lower level army.  Point-based systems overcomes this challenge, at the cost of never allowing the characters to get stronger over time.  One way to avoid this pitfall is to allow the unlocking of certain customizable features, allowing players more choices over time that don’t necessarily give them an edge over other players, simply more options to choose from.

Now that you have an idea what these two approaches entail, which would you prefer.  Submit your vote using the poll on the right to let the rest of us know your opinion.  Feel free to share your thoughts via comments here too.

The building blocks

Here are some of the essential elements that will make this game fun and enjoyable of us tactics game lovers:

• Turn-based gameplay – Each unit in the battle will take turns moving and attacking
• Multiplayer focus – Every battle is between two or more players.  This is not a solo game, but focused on player interaction
• Grid battle field – Battles will take place on a grid board, that may or may not have elevation to it.  There are variations to the type of grid layout we go with.  The options are square, hex, or even a 3d layout that incorporates height.
• Customizable units – Battles take place between small squads of units.  Players assemble this small squads and challenge other players to a duel.
• Free to play – As states yesterday, there is no hidden agenda here.  Lets make a free game for all of us to play!
• Expandable format – Lets design this game so that we can add to it over time.  New units, maps, weapons, armor, items, etc.

So there you have it, the essentials of the game.  There are many questions to answer that we all need to tackle together, and these questions need to be handled in a systematic and logical order as we develop the game.  Your feedback is crucial to the success of the development of the game.

Big things can come in small packages.  Tactical, turn-based games are in short supply.  You know the kind of game I am talking about, don’t you?  Think Final Fantasy Tactics.  Heard of it?  Would about advance wars?  Lord of the Rings Tactics?  Those are some of the recent ones, but there are others.  There have been several games over the years that capture the essence of gameplay that we now coin a “tactics” game.  Its almost a genre within itself now, like “tower defense” games.

Well, to lead to the point of this short introductory article, I would like to create in with your help a simple and expandable, possibly even extendable, turn-based tactics game that can be played for free online.  This game would need your help to be a success, there is no hidden agenda here, except to provide us all with a simple and fun tactics game that we can all play and interact with online.  What do you think, is it possible?  Stay tuned!  Many more thoughts and articles to come.