Overview
The currently-untitled game is a 2D turn-based tactical SRPG and world simulator set in a dystopian anarchist future. The world is now controlled by rival gangs ranging from lowly street thugs to the most organized crime syndicates. As a promising individual with entrepreneurial ambitions, you spot your opportunity to form your own business after stumbling into the bloody aftermath of two rival gangs following a drug deal that went sour.
Gameplay
All gameplay is turn-based. It occurs on a 2-dimensional grid and is divided into a world view section and a combat view section.
The world view allows the player to travel great distances across the world. A single move from one grid cell to the next in the world view takes a fairly long amount of time (average of 1 minute).
The player is taken into combat view whenever he engages in a battle. A single move from one grid cell to the next in combat view takes a fraction of the time of the world view (average of 1 second).
Swift, Lethal Combat
Combat in this game is meant to be swift and brutal. Turns are designed to be tense and gripping instead of being reduced down to watching units exchange blows with each other for ages. Damage and HP is designed in such a way that, with the exception of the most heavily-armored and shielded units, many units will go down in several regular attacks or possibly even just one critical. The game does not stray far from analog tabletop roots for inspiration where the requirements for players to do things like manually roll dice would make combat last too long and become too tedious if it's not short and brutal. With the exception of the largest battles, combat is designed to be very brief and very tense. It avoids prolonged JRPG-like battles to put it crudely.
Wide-ranged Tactics
To allow frequent and interesting combinations of party actions to arise in combat, the game utilizes wide-ranged tactics. Swift characters can move a fairly large number of spaces during their turn, ranged weapons can fire at distant enemies, and area of effect attacks from the likes of grenades impact a very large area. This is in contrast to many tactical SRPGs that utilize short-ranged tactics with very limited mobility, range, and AoE such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem and more in line with games such as Fallout 1&2 and those found in the AD&D Gold Box.
Character Progression
Character progression is divided into two tiers: your leader skills and individual character skills.
Leader Skills
Your leader gains experience through battle and various feats which allow him to gain levels and skill points to distribute. Your leader skills benefit all characters in your party and include:
Navigation: reduces the time required to travel on the world map and increases range of sight.
Medic: reduces the amount of time required for party members to heal from their injuries.
Repair: reduces the amount of time required to replenish ammo and repair damaged shields, armor, and vehicles.
Speech: improves the chance to persuade gang leaders to your cause and allows buying goods and services at lower prices and selling them at higher prices.
Tactics: improves the combat effectiveness of all party members in battle.
Training: improves the rate at which experience is gained by all party members.
Character Attributes
Individual characters in your party have their own attributes. Attributes are set in stone when a character is created and cannot be improved as characters level up. They range in value from 1 (pathetic) to 10 (superhuman). New characters are given a total of 20 attribute points they can distribute as they wish, allowing the character to be average (5) in all four attributes.
Strength: determines the amount of health the character has, damage dealt with melee attacks, and what equipment he can use.
Agility: determines the time required to perform actions by the character.
Perception: determines the effective range and accuracy of the character with ranged weapons.
Intelligence: determines the rate at which experience and proficiency is gained by the character.
Character Skills
In addition to character attributes, there are individual character skills which can be improved as characters level up.
Movement: reduces the time requirement for the character to move on foot in combat.
Riding: reduces the time requirement for the character to move in a vehicle in combat and reduces the time penalties for making sharp turns.
Shield: improves the chance for the character to block an attack with a shield and improves shield durability.
Guard: improves the chance for the character to get a free melee attack on any enemy that moves into his attack range when in guard mode.
Finesse: improves the chance for the character to deal a critical attack that bypasses armor and deals extra damage.
Proficiency
Individual characters also have proficiency levels with various types of weapon and items. These improve slowly and automatically as the character utilizes a particular weapon type independent of experience levels. Higher weapon proficiencies reduce the time required to attack with the weapon and increase accuracy with the weapon. Higher medical proficiency allows the unit to heal more when using bandages and medical kits.
Martial Arts: determines bare-handed proficiency.
Melee: determines proficiency with melee weapons such as combat knives and spears.
Firearms: determines proficiency with firearms such as pistols and rifles.
Throwing: determines proficiency with throwing weapons such as throwing knives and grenades.
Medic: determines proficiency with medical items.
Vehicles
Vehicles such as motorcycles play a very unique role in this combat engine. While expensive and difficult to acquire, characters equipped with a vehicle can gain a significant advantage in open battlefields. Vehicles allow them to move in straight lines much faster, gain a defensive bonus against ranged attacks that have a chance of hitting the vehicle instead of the rider (although AoE attacks damage both riders and vehicle), and can simultaneously attack while moving without requiring extra time for the attack.
When riding a vehicle, characters are limited to one-handed weapons such as pistols or clubs as they require a free hand to steer the vehicle. Smaller shields can be worn on the forearm to help protect the rider, but suffer a penalty to blocking chance as the shield must be kept relatively stationary on one side of the rider while the rider focuses on driving the vehicle.
Variable Time Costs
Unlike movement on foot, vehicles have a variable time unit cost depending on the direction in which the character moves and can require more time to traverse difficult terrain. Turning them at sharp angles or moving in the reverse direction takes substantially more time than continuing down the same direction. On the right is an example of the time unit cost ratios to move in any of the 8 possible directions with a motorcycle facing in the upward direction.
Vehicles are best suited for very open spaces. Characters may dismount from a vehicle when it is advantageous to continue the battle on foot. Vehicles can also get damaged from enemy attacks to the point of malfunctioning in battle, at which point the character must proceed on foot. Vehicles will get automatically repaired at the end of battle. Damaged vehicles get progressively slower the more damage they take.
Shields
Shields play a pivotal role in combat. They allow attacks to be blocked entirely by the shield, completely deflecting damage from the shield bearer. In particular, shields have a very high chance of blocking ranged attacks. However, whenever a shield successfully blocks an attack, it will subtract from the shield's hit points (SP). If a shield reaches 0 SP, it will cease to be usable for the remainder of the battle (although automatically repaired at the end). This limits the number of successful blocks a shield can make, especially against weapons that have a bonus against shields.
Nevertheless, shields can easily save a unit's life, especially when under heavy fire from ranged attacks. With a very high shield skill and a ballistic shield, a shield bearer in shield mode can have as high as a 90% chance of blocking any ranged attack.
In order to maximize the chance of a shield blocking an attack, foot units in battle can activate a shield mode which will cause the unit to raise the shield and duck under it. If a unit is in shield mode, it will take a 33% penalty to its movement speed in exchange for a significantly improved chance to block. If a unit attacks while in shield mode, it will temporarily deactivate shield mode and leave the unit open for the duration of the attack.
Shields can only be combined with one-handed weapons such as knives, batons, or pistols.
Shield Interception
Units carrying shields have a chance to not only block attacks aimed at them but also ranged attacks aimed at friendly troops behind them. Normally enemy projectiles fly over friendly troops which are not targeted directly. Yet if any of the friendly troops in the projectile's path are carrying a shield, they have a chance to intercept and block the projectile.
This makes shield bearers not only good at defending themselves but also more vulnerable units behind them such as those wielding two-handed weapons.
Armor
Armor in this game works to effectively extend a unit's own HP by providing armor HP (AP) on top. For example, a unit may have 12 hit points and an additional 20 AP. Normal attacks always target AP before the unit's HP, requiring the AP to be reduced to 0 before it will begin draining the unit's HP. Nevertheless, critical attacks bypass armor and directly damage the unit's HP. Heavier armor often provides superior protection but can also encumber the unit and impose a time penalty on their movement cost on foot.
Injuries
When units are injured and have their HP drained, they will suffer time penalties to all actions they can perform. The more injured a unit becomes, the fewer actions it can take per turn. This allows for alternative strategies to be viable which spread out damage across enemies rather than than trying to take out individual enemies as soon as possible.
Characters can use bandages and medical kits in battle to recover some of their own HP or the HP of adjacent allies. However, only 50% of the total damage taken can be repaired in battle. For example, if a unit with 12 HP takes 6 damage, it can only repair to a maximum of 9/12 HP (12-6*0.5). If it then takes 8 more damage (total of 14 damage taken), it can only repair to a maximum of 5/12 HP (12-14*0.5).
Outside of battle, recovering from an injury can take quite a long time compared to armor repair unless the leader is a skilled medic, so it helps to try to minimize serious injuries in battle. Serious injuries take exponentially longer to recover from than light injuries. Yet HP restoration over time is based on percentages rather than absolute numbers, so units with high strength (and therefore high maximum HP) recover points faster in absolute terms. Nevertheless, two units at 20% HP will take an equal amount of time to get to 100% HP even if their strength and maximum HP is significantly different.
If a unique character in your party reaches 0 HP, he/she becomes unconscious for the remainder of the battle and will take quite a time to heal back to full HP. There is no permanent death or injury for unique characters you build in your party.
Long Melee Weapons
Normal melee weapons only have an attack range of 1 and can attack any adjacent grid cell in any of the 8 directions. Yet there also exist long two-handed melee weapons such as pikes which have an attack range of 2 and can attack over adjacent friendly troops to units two grid cells away. These can be very useful when combined with a shield bearer in front of the pikeman in a defensive formation, allowing both the shield bearer and the pikeman standing behind him to attack the same enemy simultaneously in one turn.
In particular, pikemen can form strong defensive formations by activating guard mode.
Guard Mode
Melee units on foot can go into a guard mode if they have enough time units available. This will end their turn and allow them to defend grid cells within their melee attack parameter. When an enemy moves within the attack parameter of the unit in guard mode, the guarding unit has a random chance (higher chance with more skill points in guard) of getting a free attack on that enemy in response to their movement. In particular, units with long melee weapons can be very effective using guard mode, allowing them to potentially get multiple free attacks to any enemies that dare to get close during the enemy's turn.
The probability of successfully guard-attacking an enemy that moves into the guarding unit's range is based on a combination of the unit's guard skill and the number of time units the unit had left over before entering into guard mode.
Consumables
To avoid tedious micromanagement, the game does not have any real consumable items. While a unit can only carry a limited number of throwing weapons, ammo, and other consumables into battle, and while equipment like armor, shields, and vehicles can be damaged, they are automatically and gradually replenished and repaired after battle. The goal is to avoid the tedium of a player having to repeatedly go back to shops to replenish his items and to reward a more confident and aggressive play style that isn't stingy about using such items in combat.
Equipment
Each character in your party can be individually equipped with combat gear. The most important elements of a character's equipment besides a possible vehicle is his armor and what he carries with him. Helmets may be introduced later on (to be seen), but will play a relatively minor role such as reducing the chance of receiving a critical if so. Since the player may manage a fairly large number of characters in his party, the game avoids too many complex equipment slots to streamline the equipment management.
Hand Slots
Of particular note are four hand slots available to a character: one large slot, one medium, and two small. This allows the character to carry one large item (such as a large weapon or large shield), one medium item, and two small ones. Examples:
large assault rifle, medium medkit, small combat knife, small frag grenade
large ballistic shield, medium baton, small pistol, small set of bandages
large ballistic shield, medium backup shield, small pistol, small ammo clip
large 2H pike, medium SMG, small ammo clip, small set of throwing knives
Smaller items can also be equipped into larger slots, allowing the player to carry 4 small items or 2 medium items and 2 small items, and so forth.
Terrain
Grid cells in combat have various terrain factors. Different terrain provides different effects for units that move into them. Water cells, for example, are impossible to cross with vehicles and require more time units to traverse on foot. Elevated cells provide defensive and range bonuses, allowing ranged units inside those cells to shoot and throw further and more accurately than usual. Some cells are completely impassable and block line of sight for ranged attacks of units standing behind them. Hovering over a grid cell with the mouse cursor will provide information about the grid cell and any unit standing on it.
World Simulation
Outside of combat is a world simulation and sandbox where rival gangs engage in turf wars, thugs and bandits roam the streets and roads looking for easy targets, and guards patrol outposts with dynamic economies involving trade. The player will have a difficult time getting started in this treacherous world starting with only a band of rookies ill-equipped to face against any faction or attack any caravan and barely ready to even face common thugs and bandits.
Some lowly gangs start out relatively friendly to the player. Others remain permanently hostile. As the player grows in power and notoriety, he may be able to start recruiting more gang members to his cause from friendly gangs, perform tasks for them, negotiate deals, ally and trade with them, and even conquer and establish his own base of operations. At this point, he can start businesses to provide a steady stream of revenue, fortify his base to help defend it against attacks, hire guards to defend the base and patrol the surrounding area, and devote RB&D to researching new technology to aid his troops and businesses. Yet the player must beware. As his notoriety grows, so too will he become increasingly singled out by the most powerful gangs as an enemy that needs to be taken out.
Victory Condition
The player can beat the game by defeating all rival factions and unifying the remnants of the old world under his gang, ultimately establishing a new world order.
