Avoiding or Adapting Combat Systems for Games

Combat systems are expensive for game designers. Daniel Cook, Chief Creative Officer at Spry Fox, has gone so far as to call them a resource-intensive trap. 

From an aesthetic perspective, Postgoodism also prefers non-violent game mechanics. When he created Don’t Get Wet, he was concerned about yet another fighting game blending in with all the combat games out there. 

I’ve stumbled through enough game design of my own to implement an RPG-style combat system in Twine, and it wasn’t too difficult. Implementing a system that was interesting and fun ended up being the real challenge. 

RPG combat systems normally rely on a bunch of stats that are engineered to change over time. While I can understand the functions involved in changing those numbers (especially when someone smart explains them), I have difficulty understanding the experiences that they deliver for players. 

Luckily, Daily Adventure Prompts has offered an explanation that uses chess pieces to explain different combat roles: 

• Infantry (pawn): Low-level threats that take up space on the battlefield and get in the way. 
• Brute (rook): An outright threat that should not be attacked directly. 
• Skirmisher (knight): Ranged or highly mobile fighters that target weak spots. 
• Controller (bishop): Enemies pursuing goals in the background (“the cult priest finishing the disastrous ritual, the master thief making off with the mcguffin”), frequently protected by a hazardous/hard to bypass barrier. 
• Support (king): Piggybacks on other types of units to make them better at doing their jobs. 
• Elite (queen): Mixes the strength and abilities of two other types of combatants. “Combine a brute and a support for an unstoppable frontline commander, or infantry and a skirmisher for an elite striketeam that attacks in perfect coordination before fading back into the shadows.” 

These classifications make a bit more sense for me. I still agree with Daniel Cook and Postgoodism: combat systems require big investments that invite comparisons with a massive range of titles, but some of these ideas can make a game's fight sequences more distinctive. 

It turns out that Nessa Cannon was right — more people should be using chess in game design.

 

Image credit: Wadams / Pixabay