The first objective is to design and build a Turn-Based Combat System. The combat system is ultimately going to be the most “gamey” part of this game where the player will spend the majority of their time and, hopefully, have the most fun. In order to have an idea of what this Turn-Based Combat System should look like, it’s helpful to remind ourselves of the Design Pillars we laid out in the previous post.
Design Pillars
1. Familiar RPG Experience in a Bite Sized Package
Deliver on the essential elements of an RPG with an intriguing story, lots of quests, tons of loot, and hordes of enemies.
2. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Every system and piece of content must be designed with the intention that it can be reused and repurposed in a multitude of ways.
3. Simple Turn-Based Combat System
The combat system will be a simple turn-based system reminiscent of classic JRPGs.
4. The ONE Hook
Find ONE and ONLY ONE unique Hook throughout the course of development.
The Design
With the Design Pillars in mind we can start to plan out what the structure of our Turn-Based Combat System might look like. We want it to feel familiar to past RPGs, we want it to support as much reuse as possible, and we want to keep it simple.
What I have in mind is something similar to classic Final Fantasy with the player’s Heroes on one side of the screen and the enemies on the other. Each round of combat the player can select actions for their Heroes and then watch them play out. Heroes can attack, perform magical abilities, use an item, or try to run away. If the player wins they earn experience points which can eventually level up a Hero granting them improved combat stats and occasionally new abilities. If they fail they would be returned to town.
Structure of Combat
This Turn-Based Combat System has a very straight forward flow and structure going through a couple of key phases:
- Planning Phase
- The player will select actions for each of their up to 3 Heroes. These actions include:
- Attack – Perform this Hero’s basic attack
- Magic – Perform one of this Hero’s magic abilities at a cost of Focus Points
- Focus – Add Focus Points to this Hero’s Focus Point count
- Item – Use an item from the player’s inventory
- Run – Attempt to escape from battle
- The enemy AI will also select actions for each of the enemies. These actions include:
- Attack – Perform this Enemy’s basic attack
- Magic – Perform one of this Enemy’s magic abilities at a cost of Focus Points
- Focus – Add Focus Points to this Enemy’s Focus Point count
- Once all selections are complete, enter the Execution Phase
- The player will select actions for each of their up to 3 Heroes. These actions include:
- Execution Phase
- The player’s Heroes and the Enemies will execute their selected action in an order determined by their Speed stat. The character with the highest speed will go first, followed by second highest speed, etc. If there is a tie between two or more characters, Heroes will be chosen to act before Enemies. If there is still a tie between two or more characters, the Heroes and/or Enemies will be ordered at random.
- Any character who has their Health Points reduced to 0 will be removed from battle. If all Heroes have their Health Points reduced to 0, the battle will end and enter the Defeat Phase. If all Enemies have their Health Points reduced to 0, the battle will end and enter the Victory Phase
- If both sides still have characters ready to fight, the battle will continue and return back to the Planning Phase.
- Defeat Phase
- If the player has been defeated they will see a Defeat Screen informing them they have fallen in battle. Once the Defeat Screen has been cleared the player will be returned to the Town Hub where they can continue their quest.
- Victory Phase
- If the player been victorious they will see a Victory Screen. The Victory Screen will inform the player of what Experience Points, Gold, or Items they may have earned. It will also inform the player if any of their Heroes have leveled up and if so if they have learned any new abilities. Once the Victory Screen has been cleared the player will return to Exploration with the Heroes restored to full health.
The Focus System
In this game, magic abilities will require the expenditure of Focus Points. However, unlike a lot of classic JRPGs, these Focus Points will need to be earned throughout the course of battle. The player starts the battle with 0 Focus Points. At the end of each round of battle a character will earn 1 Focus Point regardless of their action taken. Using the Focus action will earn the character additional Focus Points helping them to build Focus faster.
The intent of a system like this is to force the player to make interesting decisions about how they earn and spend their Focus Points. Using the most powerful magic abilities requires some patience on the part of the player. They can speed up that process but it comes at a price of a lost action. This system also has the benefit of not encouraging the player to horde their magical abilities until they encounter a big boss battle.
While this system is not a typical magic system for a JRPG, I don’t think this quite qualifies as our One Hook, since there have been RPGs in the past that have used similar systems.
Defining a Character
In this game each character, whether a Hero or an enemy, will have a common set of attributes which define their effectiveness in battle. These attributes are as follows:
Attributes
- Name – The character’s name
- Image – The sprite for this character
- Attack – The attack power of this character used for determining basic attack damage
- Defense – The defense power of this character used for determining damage mitigated from basic attacks
- Magic Power– The magic attack power of this character used for determining the damage or effectiveness of magic abilities
- Magic Defense – The magic defense power of this character used for determining damage mitigated from magic attack abilities
- Speed – The speed of this character used for determining the order of actions during the Execution Phase of a combat round
- Max Health – The maximum health of this character
- Max Focus – The maximum amount of focus points of this character
This list could easily be expanded with more combat attributes that effect things like the chances for critical strikes, dodging, or blocking. However, since the goal is to keep things as simple as possible, I’ve attempted to boil down the list of attributes to those that are most necessary. As the game and combat system gets tweaked and iterated upon, new attributes may become necessary but at this stage, this looks like a pretty good list.
Each character will also have a list of magical abilities from which to choose from. Players will make the selection for their Heroes of which ability to use, while enemies will choose theirs at random.
Defining an Ability
To make abilities as easy to implement and reuse as possible they’ll be defined with a common set of attributes and components. We can then vary these attributes and components to make a large variety of abilities. These attributes and components are as follows:
Attributes
- Name – The ability’s name
- Required Level – The level required in order to unlock this ability
- Primary Effect – The primary effect of this ability, either Damage or Healing
- Effect Multiplier – A multiplier on the primary effect applied to the Magic Power of the casting character
- Target – The target of this ability which can be any of the following:
- Single Opponent
- All Opponents
- Single Ally
- All Allies
Components
- Casting Animation – Any animation that plays on the casting character
- Target Animation – Any animation that plays on the targeted character(s)
Additional Considerations: Secondary Effects
This ability system could be expanding upon with a set of Secondary Effects that can be attached to an ability. These would include things like stat buffs, stat debuffs, status effects, or things like resurrection or summoning. However with time at a premium these are likely out of scope for this challenge but are on my shortlist of stretch features in the event I have time at the end.
Final Thoughts
With this high-level design for the Turn-Based Combat System I now have a pretty good idea of what needs to be built and how I’m going to approach building it. There’s still a lot of details that I will need to design on the fly including specifics for characters, enemies, and abilities, not to mention all of the visuals and user interfaces that will be required to make this look like an actual game. Spending the time up front thinking about the design before getting too far into implementation will ultimately end up saving me time in the long run. Any time saved is a blessing when trying to stick to a tight schedule.
The next update will hopefully feature some actual in-game visuals that will take this challenge beyond just a design exercise and into the realm of game development. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Stay tuned!