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Yui Unifex · 10-31-2003, 10:52 AM

And now for something completely different. =)

I'm not focusing on anything even remotely resembling realism for a game that I'm currently designing. The game is not set in the physical world, and the player is not even controlling humanoid characters. This is just a friendly reminder that combat does not have to be neat moves or even "attacks" in the sense that you beat on someone until you kill or disable them.

Combat in my system is based upon a few of factors: A terrain grid (whose size and shape is yet to be determined, if it's constant at all), and the 'spirit' that you're controlling. A spirit is always phased towards one of the properties of space, time, water, air, fire, or earth, and each terrain tile corresponds to one of these properties as well. Combat essentially consists of using abilities to damage the opponent, but the real strategy comes from manipulating your tiles into patterns that will allow you to maximize damage output and minimize damage input.

For example, let's say that you have the ability to summon a rabid dolphin that will swim from your current tile and do damage to the opponent. This ability would be restricted in that you can not execute it unless you have water tiles connecting the tile you and the opponent are currently standing on. Furthermore you can only execute this water ability when you are phased to that particular property. As such, you are completely vulnerable to whatever it is that trumps water. Also, you might be unable to move to some tiles while phased to a certain element: If you are phased to fire and step on a water tile, you would take heavy damage.

Other abilities might do damage and manipulate tiles all in one go, such as the case where you let loose a spiral of fire that will set ablaze each tile it touches on its path. Some patterns would be extremely beneficial, so one might not even care to direct these attacks at the opponent. One ability might require the entire outside ring of the field of tiles be set to a current property as a precondition for its execution.

10-31-2003, 10:52 AM	#9
Yui Unifex Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 323	And now for something completely different. =) I'm not focusing on anything even remotely resembling realism for a game that I'm currently designing. The game is not set in the physical world, and the player is not even controlling humanoid characters. This is just a friendly reminder that combat does not have to be neat moves or even "attacks" in the sense that you beat on someone until you kill or disable them. Combat in my system is based upon a few of factors: A terrain grid (whose size and shape is yet to be determined, if it's constant at all), and the 'spirit' that you're controlling. A spirit is always phased towards one of the properties of space, time, water, air, fire, or earth, and each terrain tile corresponds to one of these properties as well. Combat essentially consists of using abilities to damage the opponent, but the real strategy comes from manipulating your tiles into patterns that will allow you to maximize damage output and minimize damage input. For example, let's say that you have the ability to summon a rabid dolphin that will swim from your current tile and do damage to the opponent. This ability would be restricted in that you can not execute it unless you have water tiles connecting the tile you and the opponent are currently standing on. Furthermore you can only execute this water ability when you are phased to that particular property. As such, you are completely vulnerable to whatever it is that trumps water. Also, you might be unable to move to some tiles while phased to a certain element: If you are phased to fire and step on a water tile, you would take heavy damage. Other abilities might do damage and manipulate tiles all in one go, such as the case where you let loose a spiral of fire that will set ablaze each tile it touches on its path. Some patterns would be extremely beneficial, so one might not even care to direct these attacks at the opponent. One ability might require the entire outside ring of the field of tiles be set to a current property as a precondition for its execution.