Hello and welcome to the first entry of the dev diary for Stolen Realm! We’ve been hard at work for months after the Early Access release to expand the base of the game (and we've got some quite relevant updates to prove it!); but now that the dust has settled and we feel we’re heading in the right direction, we wanted to open our metaphorical doors a little bit to share with you the development process of the game – and sometimes how’s our daily work as indie developers. For this first entry we want to discuss how we came up with one of the basic pillars of Stolen Realm: its unique blend of the depth of turn-based strategy games and the white-knuckle ride of action-RPG.
Stolen Realm is our passion project, borne of our love of turn-based games, but it’s also our answer to a problem we stumbled upon very soon in the design process: we wanted to do a TBS game, and one we could play with our friends because we love shared gaming sessions; but most of these turn-based games are usually designed for single player experiences. They also run into issues when you start adding multiplayer options, such as a massive downtime between turns during combat.
This particular problem meant we found it very difficult to get into a lot of turn-based games, especially since many titles required you to start the game together rather than just jump in and out with a character. So we realized that, for our game, we needed to find a way to conduct drop-in sessions with your friends at any given time without feeling slowed down by too many players, which is how many action-RPG games tend to work. It had to be fast-paced as well – but without sacrificing a satisfyingly deep tactical combat system with a lot of strategic options. There was another challenge attached to this: when to lock people together, and when to let them free roam making up their own adventures on the go.
A battle balanced for just one player
Just like any other game, we had our own deep well of inspirations and ideas that we researched and looked at the pros and cons of before we jumped into development of Stolen Realm. We loved that concept enough that we felt that we had to bring that mechanic to the world of deep tactical combat, considering that this would allow us to make a tactical turn-based game with fast paced gameplay vs long, drawn out rounds with multiple players in the game. As for other inspirations, we looked at games we love from both genres and took the best elements. For turn-based we’re inspired by Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate 1-3 and on the action RPG side we’re heavily inspired by Diablo 2, Path of Exile and others. We also draw a bit from the exploration mechanics from Slay the Spire.
It honestly just worked right out of the box a lot better than we thought. We were worried that it would downplay the importance of the strategy layer and everyone wouldn’t play off each other, but it ended up resulting in more strategic gameplay. When the fight is straightforward, everyone kind of moves forward and the battle progresses quickly. When you need a more strategic move, everyone kind of talks about it and then you have the full freedom of every team member executing their moves in any order, which actually creates a more synergistic strategy.
There were certain mechanics we gave up to make it work a little better. Heroes don’t get a lot of action points, although you can build your character towards a lot of free actions. And there wasn’t much we could do with a hero getting more turns than another, but we think the benefits outweigh any sacrifices we had to make.
This battle, significantly more difficult, is balanced for a full party
But what was exactly the solution we found? It’s what we call “simultaneous turns” – probably the most defining feature of the game. You can really have 20 enemies that all move together and execute their turns at the same time. As an example, if you have 20 enemies in say for example Divinity 2, that usually results in long down time while you wait for everyone to take their turn. This also meant that the AI for Stolen Realm had to be tuned for performance and avoid any clashes for the mechanic to function successfully. Another big part is quick story decisions that play a big role in how the team places, as well as bringing everyone together in the game’s narrative.
Let’s talk about the simultaneous turn system first. Basically, if you’re on the same team, everyone gets to trigger their actions all at once. The resolution for this is just like a real time battle, although due to a small number of action points per turn, there is still a high degree of turn-based combat feeling to the game. With regards to the adaptive AI, at the start of their turn, they sequentially map out what they are going to do next. This calculation takes less than a second, but it allows each enemy to know what the other is planning on doing, so they don't make mistakes such as trying to move to the same hex as each other. Once this is completed, they all execute their actions in real time, so the end result is the enemies act and move at the same time, effectively giving us the same great strategic feel without the absurd wait times.
An enemy turn with our simultaneous turn system
Balancing is one of the hardest things as a game developer. Having said that, we’ve taken great lengths to ensure that you don't need to play with extra characters that you don't feel obligated to take with you. Most turn-based games don't have this mechanic: a lot of them are just meant to be played with a full party, and this puts you at a disadvantage if you don't. Action RPGS on the other hand generally scale up in difficulty whenever more people join the game, and this is what we wanted. Effectively, you get to choose the party size, and the game adapts even if it’s a party of 1.
In order to ensure every aspect of the game worked harmoniously with each other, we had the core philosophy of making a great turn based RPG without waiting times from the beginning, which made it easier to add everything around that core gameplay design. There are still many design choices that are made along the way, but we always try to keep as much strategy without causing a large wait.
Thank you for reading today’s dev diary! Remember to check out Stolen Realm on Steam, add us to your wishlists and we’ll catch you again in the near future with some more information. You can also drop by our Discord channel to say hello, meet other fellow heroes of the realm, and give us your feedback about the game!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330000/Stolen_Realm/