Hello! I hope everyone is having a good 2024 so far! An update on a more intricate combat system from Core Lords below.
How Orange, Red, Action! (ORA) Works
Cores Lords has a turn-based combat system, but also has a minor twist on "you move I move".
In Core Lords, Many actions such as attacking, moving and falling may have a kind of "wind up" before the action is triggered.
This is called ORA, or Orange > Red > Action!
Each action can be ORA or an instant effect and takes an Action Point per stage. Objects that don’t have Action Points are likely to progress a stage after each player turn ends.
ORA can also skip the “Orange” stage, meaning the trigger will happen after only one stage of wind-up.
ORA is represented by orange or red outlines on enemies, cores and objects.
We can see the enemies are at different stages in their ORA, one in "Orange" and one in "Red". Our player better move!
Enemy ORA
You can see this enemy with two stage ORA, attacking after “Red”.
Above you can see the enemy used a total of 3 actions points in this sequence. It used it's 4th point to start the wind-up again, going to "Orange".
Core ORA
Cores also can use ORA. Use this knowledge to strategize placement and moves!
Watercores "Pop" after a certain amount of time/turns.
Puzzle ORA
Puzzles may also have situational ORA, adding timing and planning challenges.
The floating cores are going to drop very soon!
Hopefully ORA is not too complicated! It is all fairly intuitive in game. Let me know what you think about it!
Also, as always, give the demo a go and give me some feedback for that too!
Cheers,
Chris