"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
‒ Friedrich Nietzsche
The game, despite the strong narrative structure, offers a series of strategic battles against fearsome monsters. By commanding up to four characters with different abilities, the player will be able to face any adversity and thus reach the conclusion of this story.
22 boss battles will challenge the player with unique enemies based on known horror creatures (werewolves, zombies, demons, etc.) and original ones.
As the game features only boss fights without grinding, we created a development system based on points distribution thanks to cards dropped by monsters (every card has a point value). Hard enemies will give more points than starting ones.
We wanted to give free will on character's growth as well, so in a dedicated section of the game players will be able to enhance stats or abilities by spending points as they wish. This feature allows different combinations and expands the base game's replayable structure not only during the story arcs but also during boss fights.
Battle-system is based on RPGMaker default battle settings (a very Dragon Quest-like system) with a frontal view of the enemy and a turn-based order flow (like in Final Fantasy X). We wanted to add some more strategy, so we implemented a speed-related turn order that changes if the character/enemy uses normal attacks, items of powerful skills. For example, Arthur, who's a slow character, may take more turns in comparison to his allies if they keep using their best skills over and over again.
Every character has a unique weapon, up to 5 unique abilities (3 base ones + 2 story-locked), a unique defense skill (like a dodge, HP restore or guard) and the option to use items for gaining health back or casting status ailments on enemies.
We took inspiration from games such as Shin Megami Tensei and Fate Grand Order.
Battles are meant to take a short time of the whole adventure, but we would like to make them memorable and as different as possible.
