Samurai Warriors!
Recently, we treated you to an interview with our sound magician, and today we're bringing you a devlog straight from the heart of our game development process!
Have you ever heard of an initiative system? It's an incredibly vital component in many turn-based RPGs! And the situation is no different in Shadow of the Road, where it plays a fundamental role. In simple words - its primary task is to determine the order in which characters get to make their moves.
Let us share a bit of the history of how this system has evolved in our game…
In the past…
At first, we had a very “XCOM-like” approach where players could make moves with all characters in any order (and multiple times within their turn, using available action/movement points). In other words, the player would switch between characters, take actions, end their turn, and after that the game would switch to AI which would act similarly.
We showcased this combat system at PAX in 2020. And while it served its purpose, we felt that our game needed something more… Something deeper! We needed a system that would allow players to anticipate enemy moves, analyze situations, and have full influence on what is happening on the battlefield!
So now!
The current iteration of the system draws its inspiration from samurai battles, where it's crucial to observe everything and make decisions that significantly impact the course of the clash.
The core of this mechanic revolves around character initiative.
All characters participating in the battle are sorted based on their initiative values and the one with the highest value starts the whole action. Default initiative values are predefined, but can change as the game develops. Several factors influence the status, such as an initiative penalty for taking damage and side effects.
By introducing this system, we were able to incorporate more combat mechanics that enhance its depth.
The main innovation here is delayed attacks!
These attacks are more effective, but carry a risk of failure. A delayed attack is carried out as a new element on the timeline. So the character initiating it cannot move and automatically ends their turn. If they are attacked before executing the attack, it will be interrupted.
This system also operates in rounds, with each unit making one move per round.
Unfortunately…
Introduced changes also have some drawbacks that make this solution less than perfect. Notable issues include:
⚔️ Delaying attacks by a fixed value can lead to situations where nobody on the battlefield can counter or interrupt them. We attempted to solve this by delaying attacks based on factors like the number of characters, but this fix won’t be good enough.
⚔️ Time axis shifts are inconsistent. We couldn't find a solution that would allow us to predictably and fairly move a unit, for example, to the next round. A character that received a high amount of damage would end up at the end of the queue in a given round.
⚔️ The chance of having a negative initiative value. After receiving a sufficient amount of damage, a unit might have a negative initiative value, which isn't considered a valid value. While we could theoretically try to soften this effect by increasing base values, it wouldn't eliminate the entire problem.
But guess what…? These issues prompted us to work on another version of the system!
What the future holds…
Treat this like a small sneak peek, but…
In previous systems, the gameplay was divided into rounds in which action points and character movement reset at the beginning of each subsequent turn. The new system will have an additional dimension, and we will be abandoning the concept of rounds. However, we don't intend to reveal too much just yet, as there's more to come.
Rest assured, everything is continuously evolving!
Stay tuned!
To stay in the loop regarding our progress, come join our Discord community! And once again, thank you for being a part of this incredible journey!
Best regards
Another Angle Games
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1173980/Shadow_of_the_Road/