Felvidek is pretty cool + Turn-Based Combat Depth

Just finished Felvidek. It's another quirky RPGMaker game in the same vein as Hylics, Black Souls, and Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden with basic turn based JRPG combat, quirky humor, and a unique artstyle to carry it. I quite enjoyed the games visual style, and the medieval writing was the best part, but was a little disappointed by the lack of gameplay and enemy variety by the ending. I finished it in about four hours, mind you with constant runbacks to towns and churches to heal up and constantly upgrading my gear, as well as two reloads with a small amount of backtracking needed, so the actual playtime is probably a bit less. Still, much better to end early then outstay its welcome. 

It's main selling point is the main characters, an alcoholic knight Pavol with a hilariously unfaithful wife and Matej, a pious monk acting as the straight man getting into highjinks and adventures together, and their dynamic is both fun and memorable. Their roles aren't as differentiated in combat, but Matej can put up a bit of a fight too and isn't just a healer, which is a nice change of pace from what you might expect. Overall, I think the game is just mid, and a bit overpriced for what it is (more then Fear & Hunger which is so much more "game" then this) it's a bit hard to recommend at the present moment. More unique music and more of those fun PS1 inspired cutscenes would have really made it a complete product, but it's fine to pick up on a sale if you got an afternoon to kill. But enough about the game as a whole, let's talk about the gameplay.

However one thing I can say is this game at least tries to explore the idea-space of JRPG style combat, which is something that can't be said for all RPGMaker style games. Namely, some enemies in this game have armor, reducing the amount of damage you deal to them. In an effort to make this game more interesting, it isn't an insignificant amount of protection either; your attacks dealing about half their regular damage. Your character's weapons determine some of their Feints, special moves ala spells, and equipping a sword allows for the Half-Swording move (which I can happily report is actually half swording, and not the Mordhau grip! Pet peeve averted.) and what this move does besides dealing a chunk of damage is reduce or remove enemy armor for a few turns, giving you a chance to deal full damage with other attacks until that tougher enemy is defeated.

While extremely simple, the concept behind this intrigued me and ended up flinging me down a rabbit hole of the huge amount of possible depth and strategy in what is otherwise the absolute most basic type of turn based combat imaginable; the JRPG style. I'll put this in with my previous posts on Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment, two tangentially related topics of discussing here. I could have sworn I've touched on this before, but this is a good time to go over it during the mandatory multi-year-long-blog-content drought lol

The Simplest Game
JRPG style combat is really simple. It's a mathematical game of reducing the number of enemies hit points to zero while keeping yours above zero, with different scenarios or matchups changing what moves or abilities are best. Besides the occasional random element, such as damage numbers, turn order, critical strikes & missed attacks, enemy moves, or other shakeups- turn based combat without hidden information can be made into a "solved game". I think this has a negative connotation, despite not necessarily being a bad thing in its own right, the idea of a purely numerical planned experience would take a lot of fun out of the "gameplay".

While not technically the simplest form of combat or game that exists, I think the JRPG style combat is the least involved and most "simple" to actually play or design, with the greatest depth not involving other mechanics. What I mean by this is while an action game can be technically much simpler then a turn based game, such as enemies simply needing to be jumped on to be defeated ala Mario Bros, the physics, speed, character control, give it more depth and complexity. Action RPGs like Diablo have their similarities as well, but still have a focus on movement and aim or crowd control that isn't the same. I'd argue that since turn based games are simply picking options in a menu, with no time pressure or other forms of mechanics, it's still a more "simple" game overall. This applies to its closet counterpart in the form of the Tabletop RPG.

No other video game genre really fits as closely, at least in terms of combat mechanics, then the generic JRPG- action RPGs are too tactile and based on a totally different skill set, and strategy games lack the same single-unit control that is central to the common theme of a traditional tabletop RPG. There is also an argument to be said that tactile games, like Fire Emblem, can closely match a tabletop game in terms of mechanics. While I would admit this is true for games with heavy use of figurines and battlemaps, I think the majority of games I've personally been in have been theater of the mind combat, which in my opinion is more parallel to the quintessential JRPG style "simplest" possible engagements of numbers, preparation, resource-management, and action-economy as congruently close to the tabletop experience. You don't have to worry about getting zoned by faster enemies with ranged attacks, timing your i-frames during a perfect dodge roll, or opportunities to use your healing items in the midst of enemy attacks and interruptions; it's a pure numbers game.

So with that out of the way; how much depth can you really squeeze out of turn based combat?

Action Economy
One feature of turn based games that are unique to them is the very high importance on an action economy. In action or real-time games, this is less important (or arguably more important) because of the real time nature of the controls and instant feedback of your various moves or actions. In turn based games however, action economy plays a very vital role, mostly in the form of when it breaks.

In a traditional turn-based combat game, every unit or character is going to get one action per turn. This means each party member you have grants exponential more moves and possibilities for your turn. Even a relatively useless party member with low stats or no special moves can still be extremely useful, simply as a way to use items or acting as a soak for damage, as enemy attacks will sometimes hit them instead of your "more useful" party members. (More on that later). Secondly, anything that takes away actions, such as stuns or similar status-effects, are going to be very strong and needed to be used sparingly. One of my biggest gripes about Felvidek is that there are multiple enemies that can perform a stunning blow, and most turns you'll have one of your party members stunned and not able to use their actual useful or cool moves. You can also do it yourself, which is something I intentionally didn't abuse because I wanted to interface with other parts of the combat system. (Felvidek isn't going to be talked about much more here; I just wanted to say it explored these combat mechanics more then a lot of RPGMaker slop I've played but not as much as it could have, which inspired this blogpost).

This action economy also influences other forms of player psychology and behavior. The much-loathed "useless" status effect spells or consumable items in JRPGs are prime causalities of the action economy. I'd wager people are much more comfortable playing a buff/debuff heavy character in an Action RPG or wargame where the cost of doing a curse to an enemy or a weaker buff on an ally is a few seconds of movement (just extends the fight a few seconds, or means you need to dodge one more attack) or is at the cost of a single specialized unit that isn't doing much else anyway, as opposed to a JRPG style game (or tabletop game) where using up one of your few (or only) action in a round on something that can either fail, has minimal impact, or will only extend the fight pointlessly. ie; why would you inflict an enemy with poison if you can kill them faster with basic attacks? The only way to fix this is to make the status effects necessary to deal with on the player side (really annoying), or highly desirable AND communicate their value to the player (not always easy to do).

Additionally, some games have abilities that are very strong or useful, but come at the cost of a future or previous turn. I actually really like these moves as I think they tend to be strong enough to justify them. Hylics 2 has my favorite example of this in Pongorma's unique gesture, Lightning. Lightning is one of the most satisfying moves in the entire game, and stays constantly useful as it scales on the character's power stat, so even as the enemy's get stronger, you can continually increase how much damage it is. It also has probably one of the best turn based combat animation sounds in the history of any game ever, immortalized in the above .gif

However upon reading the description for Lightning one starts to see its strategic depth. If it was simply a stronger version of a standard attack that required Will points (the mana resource), it would be one thing, but Lightning has the effect of dealing 175% of your normal attack damage and stunning Pangorma for one round afterwards. This means in an extended battle it is always better to just attack twice for overall damage. However, if you have a method of increasing your damage temporarily (like Charge-Up, we'll get to that later) or you need an enemy dead now, then Lightning becomes an invaluable tool. Hylics makes heavy use of enemies telegraphing stronger attacks with the Charge-Up mechanic, and the game is tightly balanced enough that a Pangorma lightning on an enemy with a little more focus fire is just enough to knock them out before they can unleash whatever nasty move they want to do on your next turn. The same mechanic also appears in Felvidek too, in which using the Gun feint just straight up shoots a gun at a single enemy and does like 4x the damage of any normal attack, but the character has to 'reload' the next round, and can't act. While identical to Lightning I find this one less interesting as it's more about balancing the cost of the skill rather then the action economy/time investment, and since Felvidek's feints are so expensive you're only going to get to use them 2-3 times a fight for each character.

Similarly, Charge-Up is another move in Hylics. Charge-Up is unique in that enemy's also can use it, and always do it prior to using their strongest move, giving the player a chance to react by either focus firing that enemy, using the guard action, or otherwise trying to survive. Charge-Up also applies to the next move you perform, meaning it can also be used just to give a boost to a basic attack. However, it won't apply to using an item, guarding, or getting stunned; meaning you can still react and save it for when you need it and can't "waste" it, at least as far as I remember. I think stunning enemies with Charge-Up active (an extremely rare/endgame gesture is required as well, Hylics doesn't give you abilities like this very much) doesn't dispel it either, just giving you an extra turn.

The other interesting thing about Charge-Up is that if has unique effects on certain gestures; specifically the character-unique gestures that each of your party members have. While most gestures are learned in the world and shared among all party members, these ones come built-in with each character and tend to be the bedrock of your strategies. This further does something unique by making each party member actually play differently in the turn based generic JRPG style game, with a type of role-specificity that most other games don't have when spamming whatever basic attack or highest-damage to lowest-cost ratio spell you have available. What this adds is further depth to your planning and action-economy; choosing to use a weaker version of a gesture in a single turn, or charge up to a big and powerful attack or support move that can change the whole tide of battle.

There are also an entire host and genre of JRPGs that let you just straight up give turns from one party member to another, or "reserve" them for later use. I actually don't like these. However, I can't deny the high amount of tactical depth they can bring to a game. Being able to pass on a turn (but causing the party member who goes again to become exhausted and do less damage) was a great mechanic in Bug Fables, another turn based game, though more in the vein of Paper Mario then a RPGMaker game.

Damage & Defense
Overall, combat in tabletop games and JRPG-style games is very simple. It is simply an attack that deals damage to the enemy, with no overall baring on the enemy's ability to do their own actions (hit stun), no over-committing or stagger from a bad whiffed attack on the player's part, and no innate catchup or progressive battle mechanics. In other words, do attack and number go down until you win.

However, there is a massive amount of potential for how this can and is expanded. Though many of the games I've covered here have some of these mechanics, most do not have all. Despite such a simple base system, I can already see a few methods of offense/defense that can infer your strategies.

Base HP- Attacks deal damage to this. No special properties.
Evasion- Attacks have a chance to miss. Analogous to AC.
Armor- Attack damage is reduced by a flat or percentage value. Analogous to DR.
Regeneration- Small amount of Hit Points are regenerated each turn. Usually a buff or status-effect.

Obviously there are more mechanics then these, but even with these extremely basic four stats, I can see a massive amount of potential for a game's mechanics. For example, fighting a creature like a blob or a bear with a high Hit-Point pool (or a boss) but no other defensive abilities is significantly different then fighting a standard enemy. The game may feature damage-over-time moves or status effects like poison or fire that deal damage each round. For standard enemies with lower health pools, these attacks are slow to act and less efficient in defeating them. ie; your standard attack does 10 damage but your DoT spell deals 4 damage per round for three rounds. Overall the DoT is better, dealing 12 damage after 3 turns, but your standard attack deals more now. You can see the strategy forming already; against an enemy with ~20 hit points, standard attacks are better, as after two rounds you can defeat it, where as the damage over time + standard attack move would only have dealt 18 damage at this point (4 + 4 + 10), where as the damage over time move is better against a high health enemy like a boss, as you'll do more damage overall mixing it with standard attacks; after three rounds it would deal 32 damage total instead of just 30 with three basic attacks. Simple, but already creates a dynamic.

Evasion and Armor function similarly, either by avoiding attacks and increasing the number of hits that you need to land or deal to deal with that opponent. However, certain attacks (magic, true strike, area of effect, etc.) may be able to have no chance of being avoided, where as armor could be bypassed by similar moves. The actual mathematics work out to be about the same; two enemies with similar health but one having 50% chance to avoid hits and one with 50% damage reduction would be equivalent to each other in the number of attacks needed to defeat them, but both in terms of flavor and actual workaround methods, they could feel very different. That's not to mention the odd game which has armor as a flat damage reduction instead of percentile, which has its own entire delicious box of possibilities to open. Large single damage attacks become much better against armored opponents, where as the flurry attacks with a higher total damage split up into multiple hits are less useful.

Small side note: Hylics 2 has one of my favorite uses of this mechanic in the way of splitting damage. Basically one of the first weak enemies you fight in the game is a "Road Fleem", which has an attack called four slices. It deals four medium strength hits to random party members in a row. The attack is decent and not too special, but what is interesting is how it is used as a fight-as-a-roadblock mechanic. Basically, if you have only one party member, they'll all hit that one individual. This makes advancing past that fight as just Wayne, the starting character, almost impossible as the amount of damage is too high. But if you get a second or third character, the damage is now split up among multiple party members, thus making it more survivable.

Finally, Regeneration or enemies healing each other is a great annoyance in most games, as it undoes your progress without rewarding you any resources to compensate. Obviously this 100% depends on the actual amount of regeneration being granted by the status effect; from making fights unwinnable to a minor annoyance. I think there is a great opportunity for combat depth here though; basically requiring you to coordinate damage on that target instead of relying on status effects, area-of-effect moves, or other forms of damage to deal with them. Instead, you have to focus fire on that one enemy. Interestingly, I can't think of any examples of enemies actually using this mechanic in games as a sort of "focus on this guy OR ignore this guy" even though that seems obvious. Something like a low HP enemy that can be defeated in two or three hits, but regenerates to full Hit-Points every round, meaning when you want to deal with it you have to use one of those stronger but more expensive attacks like Pangorma's Lightning OR you have to focus multiple allies on it, less effective then area of effect and status effect spam. Hylics 2 has a lot of enemies who can heal, but typically it's telegraphed and certain enemies support each other, making target prioritization a big part of that game and very fun, in my opinion.

Side note: This is by no means an exhaustive list. Enemies who support or protect each other can very easily count as a second or even third form of "defense" an enemy could have in a simple target + attack command type of game. The titular example is Fear & Hunger, where attacking the head of an enemy will kill them outright, but is very hard to hit without cutting their legs first.

Progression Mechanics
Progression mechanics also add a large amount of depth. Even simplistic numerical climbing can become a very interesting form of progression, content-gatekeeping, or combat dynamic. Games with smaller numbers gain more "break points" where the differences in your weapons, level-ups, buffs, or other strategies can significantly change the outcome of a battle (ie; you defeat an opponent in just four attacks instead of five, or a character survives a hit that otherwise would have knocked them out, etc.) One underrated form of progression mechanic in traditional JRPG style games is that of actually gaining party members, up the maximum you can have at a single time, as stated above, this gives you more actual actions per turn, something to be given sparingly for sure!

Of course, progression mechanics themselves can be something as simple as a generic XP meter that fills up through fights, or a more experimental system where player power is gained (or lost) through world exploration and from equipment. I feel like there is a very strange "trend" of this being common in RPGMaker games, Hylics and Funger to name a few.

I think the most simple form of this is totally linear progression, which is separated from no progression, by making the game much more tightly balanced and each combat encounter basically being a "puzzle" with limited access to the ability to prepare for a fight, use consumables to make it easier, or cheese it with grinding. Briefly mentioned on this blog before is a little RPGMaker game called BUGGERWORLD which did this wonderfully, as every single fight in that game is a unique encounter with its own art, mechanics, and your characters gaining new skills along with the linear course of the game. With no optional fights, the only method of strategy between fights is consumable items and with such a linear and tightly-focused game it is entirely possible to softlock yourself by not having enough resources to get more healing items. This actually happened to my friend who was playing the game at the same time as me and who saved after the last shop and wasn't able to beat the final boss because of it.

Of course, every RPG lives somewhere between these two worlds. The macro-strategy level where you can just grind or prepare in the overworld to make the battles trivial, and the "puzzle" style game so tightly balanced that spending even one turn sub-optimally means certain death. I find it funny how the possible depth and exploration of this incredibly specific genre of game is so characterized by grinding and spamming auto-attack until you win it's the defining feature of the genre in its traditional format, the oldschool NES & SNES JRPG, and it took a very specific niche indie audience to sort of find the value of it at its core. It's almost like a type of game defined by the idea of bypassing and circumventing the actual "game" part of it, so you can get to the good bit of the character development and story beats that actually progress the "game". But that's a shame, because I think there is still a lot of potential to be found in the "four guys in a line" genre even today, when it has become the stereotype of the old, outdated, unfun, linear, and boring RPGs of days long past. Maybe a bit like D&D itself? Naw, let's not go there.

Halls of Torment is Goated Too + Weapon Mechanics

Based on this other post about Vampire Survivors.

With this burgeoning game genre of "Garlic-likes" as some may call it; the concept of fighting hoards of enemies in a short burst, with permadeath, has become popular. Several games have copied this formula; though in my opinion, none of them really were quite as good as Vampire Survivors. That was until a game called Halls of Torment caught my eye.

It's a top-down indie hoard survival game with permadeath, much like vampire survivors. A few things set it apart; the most obvious being its artstyle. I absolutely love it. Even though I know it is designed to trigger that nostalgic Diablo 1 & 2, Fallout, early digitized 3d computer- almost shamelessly so- I still love it.

Secondly, the game has some unique features. Firstly, it is a lot harder then vampire survivors, and much more involved. Enemy elite and bosses have telegraphed attacks and danger zones you have to avoid, and you need to focus some of your level-up bonuses on your defenses to avoid being killed later in your run when enemies simply become too numerous to avoid completely. On top of this, there is a secondary form of progression in the form of items. Much like Diablo, these items are lovingly rendered in that early 3d style, and you have a set of equipment slots with different bonuses. While you can find these on your runs, your main source of them is from your loadouts you can take with you every run once you "retrieve" the item- meaning you place an item you find in a bucket and have the Wellkeeper pull it up for you.

It's an extremely cool system because this means if you find an awesome item; you have to sacrifice it for the rest of your run. You can also only retrieve one item per run- which is a great way to make early "farming" runs of the game feel more meaningful. That was one issue I had with Vampire Survivors- with so much of your power coming from your upgrades- it often felt like runs where you made a mistake or with the weaker characters were just filler content to get permanent upgrades until you get to your "real" run where you actually try to survive the full 30 minutes on a map or complete an objective. Halls of Torment avoids this issue somewhat; but unfortunately it doesn't avoid it completely. You also have a "Shrine of Blessings" in this game, which let you upgrade your stats for a gold cost. I somewhat dislike this; as I thought the focus on recovering and retrieving items (and buying them from the greedy Wellkeeper of course) was much more interesting. Since the items are all kinda-sorta balanced with each other, it makes the concept of finding new items to unlock or empower certain builds more interesting. I don't necessarily hate the Shrine, I just feel it adds an unnecessary layer of power creep on top of a formula that is already pretty interesting. I could also understand it if the blessings were really weak, like 1% or 2% boosts, and cost thousands upon thousands of gold to get- a sort of endgame upgrade system for players once they've found and purchased all of the good equipment in the game, but no- these blessings are actually cheaper then most items and provide bonuses that are similar in strength. If we just say this is the "early game discovery" part of the game and we assume you've maxed out your blessing shrines first, then that's fine, but the fact you can refund gold from it and you unlock new blessings to upgrade as you do more in the game makes it feel more like a "permanent" fixture of your base. It just feels a little unnecessary, almost like it was included to increase the games parity with others of its type and the grind instead of having a more tightly focused, item and build focused type of game I was imagining early on.

But enough complaints; the biggest departure from Vamp is the fact characters actually have to aim. Each only has one weapon or attack type by default- but all of them are unique. This is probably the biggest draw of the game and most interesting part. The Swordsmen for example chunks a big cone in front of him- dealing damage to all enemies within. Getting multiattack upgrades on him makes more "waves" come out when his attack cooldown is refreshed. This is hugely different from the Archer, who fires more arrows with long range as she levels up. More interesting characters include a Cleric who deals a set amount of damage equally distributed in a large cone (meaning it absolutely destroys bosses and elites but does very little damage against large hoards) and the Warlock who summons ghosts who home in on enemies, which synergizes well with summoning items, or the Exterminator, who uses a flamethrower and burns every thing with damage over time, but lacks burst damage up close. It's great.

But this also gave me a new idea; much like my original Vampire Survivor blogpost- more abstract ideas on combat systems and damage which I think are interesting- not just for video games, but tabletop games as well.

In the last post, I talked about damage in a hypothetical tabletop game with no rules or mechanics in the combat beyond just flat damage plus a range or frequency variable. Not even armor or damage mitigation of any kind. I was a bit disappointed with how it worked out- because the idea was more based on how even something as small & simple as this could be leveraged into a pretty wide and diverse set of character strategies and tactics with the intention to improve the gameplay.

I've talked about weapon differentiation before in its myriad forms- but let's go simpler and wilder. Let's say that weapons are fundamentally different in how they work based on how you make your attacks. Things like damage or To-Hit values are totally separate from this. You don't pick a weapon based on its stats, you pick it based on what you actually need for the situation. Also also; I am 100% sure somebody else has written these exact same concepts, if not entire published games using the same ideas, but I've got a vision here- the sort of nega-space game design where you make basic mechanics shittier and harder to use but in exchange gain a more rewarding and complete experience, the QWOPlikes of tabletop roleplaying.

For this; we're going to assume you're playing a tabletop game with the minimum amount of setup for tactical combat; a grid with miniatures or tokens to represent squares. I'm sure there is a whole 'nother blogpost one could make on pure theater of the mind versions of these; we can save that for another content drought.

Weapon Attack Patterns

Swords are reliable. Pick one adjacent square and attack it. I think this not only fits swords thematically, but gives them a practical tactical use as a 1v1 duelist weapon; the weapon of the main character, etc. Two Handed Swords do the same thing, but you can also choose to hit two adjacent spaces next to each other around your character instead; splitting the damage evenly. You obviously also lose out on using a shield, dagger, or second sword.

Axes swing and cleave. Whenever you use an axe, you have to pick a square and the two squares adjacent two it around you are also attacked. For example, if you pick to attack an enemy in a square directly above you, then the upper left and upper right squares are also attacked. You hit all the squares and damage is split evenly between them. To compensate for this, axes tend to have the highest base damage of all the weapons; or at least those who use them prefer to stack on strength and the like. However, there is a catch. It is anyone in the squares you can hit with this- meaning you can also hurt your allies. You can't focus on a single enemy, such as if they are in a formation, and enemies who reflect damage or have a "thorns" effect will be very difficult for you to deal with.

Greataxes / Battleaxes do the same thing as an axe but at a range of two, and hit everything in that area- or a cone of 8 spaces. Yes really. Sounds amazing until you give enemies the ability to counter attack, or enemies who get enraged when they take damage.

Maces can only attack in the four cardinal directions, no diagonals. This means you'll want to be in formation and get right in the enemy's face. Presumably, you'd combine this with armor piercing, chance to stun, bonus damage vs undead; etc. to make it a more attractive choice over a default sword since its more limited. Originally, I was going to make it so these can only target nonliving things; but I have a better idea for its big brother-

Sledgehammers / Two Handed Blunt weapons pick one square adjacent to you and attack that. Remember, these attack squares, not necessarily what is inside the square. You make the action on your turn and it is only resolved at the end of the round- meaning a fast enemy can simply move away. You also can't change your target once you make it, meaning if an ally gets shoved prone onto that square, you're going to splat them. Omega damage bonus to compensate. You'll also be doing damage to the environment itself since you're attacking a square; if you're fighting on a boat you are 100% going to knock a hole in it doing this. If you attack an empty square of open space (such as over a pit in a dungeon or side of a roof), the momentum carries you over the edge.

Spears can poke, letting you target any square a distance of two spaces away to attack. You only attack one of these distant squares, meaning your allies can stand between you and the enemy and you can attack thru them without hurting them. However, you can't attack any squares adjacent to you.

Daggers act as an instant attack; but only against an enemy who has already been attacked and only diagonal to you. This means you couldn't use a dagger with a spear or weapons with good reach, because they'd be out of range, but you could hit enemies that your allies have hit. It also makes it good with a sword, which is realistically the only weapon people are going to dual-wield with a dagger anyway. Tactically this makes daggers feel sneaky, as they should, especially if this hypothetical combat game only allowed you to move in the cardinal directions. Just imagine a thief dual wielding daggers, dashing around to stay in poking distance of enemies while never actually committing to their face. It's perfect.

Polearms attack two spaces in a row in any direction. You can't shorten it- you always hit two spaces. This makes it really good at hitting enemies hiding behind the frontline but less effective on single foes- and way less effective on defense.

Flails attack and move at the same time. You have to move in the same direction as your attack; pushing enemies out of the way. This is a really simple rule that I am 100% sure has been made or posted about by others before but its so simple and thematic I love it.

Whips are the opposite of flails, meaning you move backwards the opposite direction you attack. They have reach- so you can attack up to two spaces in any direction, but you have to move back after it. Unlike flails, you don't push people out of the way when you do this- meaning you can be cornered.

Staves / Double-Blades can attack any adjacent target and attack twice a round, but the second attack must attack a different target on the other side of your first target. Staves are already pretty well differentiated in tabletop games- usually having a defense bonus or something similar- the idea here is if you're surrounded this weapon is useful, otherwise, not as much.

Unarmed attacks deal a set amount of damage and split that damage evenly among all adjacent enemies. This one requires a little explaining. If you're in a fistfight, you aren't going to be able to focus all your effort on one person if a bunch of people are all around you at once- and there's a pretty good chance a wild swing or elbow will connect with someone you didn't mean to. The idea here is that Unarmed combat is very strong against single targets, but much less useful against crowds. The only class who benefits from high amounts of unarmed damage would be a Monk, who also have the mobility to get around and put themselves in the best positions to make use of this reliable damage. Plus I'd imagine that if you have a hand (or two) free, you can also push enemies around, or grab an ally to pull them back, etc.

Bows can pick any space up to a range(?) and fire an arrow at that space. Much like sledgehammers; this damage is only resolved at the end of a round, meaning its possible to miss your attacks if enemies can move out of the way in time. This also gives the game a bit of a troll-physics feeling, with arrows falling down in slow motion. However, you can fire from behind your allies, making using a bow all about prediction.

Crossbows fire a bolt in a straight line up to (range). They do not pass thru allies and will hit whatever is in the way. Also they take a round to reload and do a gazillion damage. Actually I have a pet peeve about crossbows where people assume they must be insanely strong because of their drawstrength, but not understanding the length of the string/string action meaning its similar to a warbow, but it's a game so I don't mind plus it's fun.

Slings can hit any space you want beyond adjacent and don't hit allies. They deal more damage up close and extend their range by 1 every round you spin it around without throwing; so first round you can only hit guys two away and it deals 1 damage, second round you can hit people two or three away and deals 2 damage at two range or 1 damage at three range, and so on until you're one-shotting Goliath.

Boomerangs fly two spaces at a time in any direction, but only in straight lines. If you hit an enemy with this, it chains to the next enemy you can hit in a two-space straight line, and the next, etc. You can only throw a Boomerange if it has a valid path back to you. And yes, you can hit allies with it. Will be the most Based weapon-user at your table because their turn will take three times as long as anyone else.

Magic spells could obviously do everything here and more- but any spell should be equally as clunky or hard to use as any of the weapons on here. Magic Missile is reliable but does low damage, Fireball blows up everything on half the battlefield, Touch Spells are countered by whip-users zoning you out, and so on.

Vampire Survivors is Goated + Random Thoughts on Damage

I think this game may be a flavor of the month thing. Still, it's pretty awesome. I really like Vampire Survivors. It's an indie Roguelite with some permanent progression- heavily inspired by Castlevania's art, monsters, and weapons. It's an autobattler; you only control your characters movement while your weapons fire automatically- every time you level up you can get random weapons or support items and using different combinations let you create combos and evolve weapons into higher forms. Half the fun of this game is seeing how powerful your combos can get, while the game spawns literal screen-full waves of enemies to slowly walk towards you and attack.

It's a really fun little game, pretty addicting, surprisingly strategic, and it's only 3 dollars. Sadly, I missed telling you about it when it was on sale for 10% off. You could have saved 30 cents, lmao. Developers are still active on the game, and have a LOT of content planned. I know a lot of people out there refuse to touch early access games- and I don't blame you- but even if that is your concern, there is more then enough content here to justify this purchase easily.

But anyway, this isn't a shillpost for the game- though I do hope this encourages you to check it out. The real purpose for this post was that this game is at its surface incredibly simple; your attacks just do damage. There's no elements or damage weakness types, very few "status effects" really, almost no mechanics, and yet you can screw yourself over if your build has a bad combination of weapons and items because you need a diverse arsenal. Even something simple, like vampire bats or medusa heads being immune to holy water since it's on the ground, isn't in the game. But when every enemy pretty much just slowly walks at you- how can there be a game with some actual depth and thought behind it?

Despite its apparent simplicity, there is a bit of complexity in how the weapons in this game work. Every weapon has a specific firing pattern. For example, the Wand shoots rapid fire but weak bolts at the nearest enemy. It's a highly reliable source of damage against the biggest threat to you in the moment, but bad against crowds and bosses. Several weapons, like the Holy Water and the Rune Tracer, deal great AoE damage but you have zero control over them- not amazing against bosses but strong against crowds of weaker foes. There are also weapons that are very strong, but have a long cooldown, like the Lightning and the Bible. Some weapons, like the Whip or Axe, always shoot in a reliable direction- the axe up and down, and the whip horizontally. This lets you cut through crowds of mobs to escape getting trapped. Finally, the knife is a weapon that shoots high damage, rapid fire, but small and hard to aim projectiles directly in front of you- excellent for killing bosses, but meaning you have to run towards the bosses to aim at them, since your movement is the only way to aim anything.

I hate these red bats so much its unreal.

From this, we can extrapolate a sort of system for other games, including tabletop games, which add granularity to the relatively simple game mechanic of "hit things until they die". Despite all of them just "doing damage", the concept of different fantasy classes or roles in a combat focused game having defined and useful combat roles despite the apparent simplicity is really appealing to me.

For example; characters like crossbow users or rogues can deal very high burst damage all at once to individual targets. The implied combat "role" here is taking out high value targets. Enemy spellcasters, monsters on their last legs, and really dangerous monsters like level draining undead or creatures that have many attacks to take out at range.

What are all the different ways you can do combat when it comes to fighting monsters or groups- ignoring things like in universe fiction or damage types? There are four ways to think of damage in a non-timing environment (turn based) against all other concepts like in universe fiction, elemental damage types, random chance to land a hit, and so on. These four types will be near and far in range, and many targets with low damage, or few targets with high damage.

Range	Damage	Target	Class Fantasy Equivalents
Near	Small	Many	“Tank” Warrior, Paladin, Animal Companion
Near	High	Few	Dervish, Barbarian, Rogue
Far	Small	Many	AoE Blaster Mages, Clerics, Bards(?)
Far	High	Few	Rangers, One-Shot Wizard Spells

As you can see, it doesn't really work 100% to import this kind of system into a fantasy game world. The fiction of the game space doesn't line up with this concept of damage. Fighters are both "tanks" but also can do a lot of damage- they swing around big weapons. In the same vein, it's rare to see characters designed around the concept of doing slow, consistent damage- especially at range or with an area of effect, since by necessity focus firing attacks or spells on one target to get rid of them quickly is more important then dealing 2 damage to all goblins in a room even if that will mathematically kill them all faster.

This may also be the reason that fantasy games tend to have more elements thrown in. Most games have some amount of randomization when it comes to attacks- at least randomized damage plus chance to hit or absorption of hits depending on the ruleset. This is probably to stop games from being mathematically solved quantities- like if the rules say every attack with a human swordsman does 3 damage and the troll has 9 health and recovers one health per turn you can do the math to see exactly how long it would take or how many counter attacks you'd be forced to take; thus letting you know the outcome before it happened.

Post where I recommend a bunch of shitty itch.io games

So yesterday's post was kinda negative, so let's make this one positive instead. All these games are free or pay-what-you-want, so you don't think this post is advertising! They're also not all technically from itch.io, but you get what I mean. If you're here still waiting for (good) tabletop content, come back tomorrow. The 21st, I told you. I promise.

Anger Foot
This game is a lot of fun. Short and sweet; it's a very Hotline Miami-esque FPS, all about fast action and slaughtering enemies. My only complaint is the beginning part of the last level; way too hard. It is total bullshit. You'll know it when you see it. The game itself is like 45 minutes long btw, so this is perfect if you want some fast paced action.

JARS
This game is all about a young Victor Frankenstein- it's a strategy/puzzle game with some progression between levels. Basically, you break Jars on shelves to open up minions, gadgets, OR reveal enemies who will attack the caskets, which you must defend. It's great, has a few hours of content, and is still in early access. The artstyle is also gorgeous- very Don't Starve esque, and totally adorable. I'm watching this game's development and may even purchase a full and polished release; it's right up my alley.

Brogue
Brogue appears as a fairly standard ASCII roguelike clone, but it is anything but. I'm also cheating here, as this isn't technically an itch.io game- don't get confused. There are some Borgue MODS and alternate versions over on there, but I'm referring to the main one, found here.

Brogue is a surprisingly nice-looking game with some fantastic design. Basically, think of a generic Roguelike- but with no level ups or character races or classes. Your character is a generic adventurer. You advance in the game by finding potions that permanently improve your strength- health potions also increase your maximum health as well as fully heal you, giving you a strong tactical usage for them. It's design is something I find very appealing in the realm of unique tabletop game ideas; I feel like I've had to have talked about this one on my blog somewhere before; maybe for a scheduled post in the future? I'm not sure- but Brogue is just fantastic. Don't be put off by the fairly generic picture above; it makes EVER pixel of that ASCII art shine! I might even like it more then the de-facto Roguelike in DCSS. It's just that good.

HitOthers
The final game- a really weird one. Made by the band Bullerslug back in the early '10s, you are let loose in a bar with a time limit of one song to either find the three keys and escape (the lame ending) or find the gear and play a new song (cool ending) while hitting others. I remember first seeing this game in a random streamer's indie game collection stream like 5 years ago, then suddenly stumbling upon it again after forgetting the name, and here we are.

I actually really like the design of this game. Basically your health and stats are one in the same; you drink various color-coded alcohols to increase your attack, health, and speed while taking damage reduces them at a similar rate. You mash the mouse button to HIT OTHERS and are supposed to be beating people up to either increase your score and/or get the items they are carrying. The second quest or ending of this game allows you to play any song that you have collected from hitting somebody in the bar and taking the album from them when the countdown at the end of the HIT OTHERS song is over. This means you can basically listen to whatever songs you want by these artists in this game; so you could think of this game a bit like an interactive album with a small challenge to unlock the songs! Fair warning, the game is a little buggy and fucks up your wrist since you have to mash the mouse button to hit, and the mouse sensitivity is all weird giving some strain for playing it. It's still kind of a fun little beat-em-up with a unique atmosphere.

However, the most interesting thing about this game now, and why I'm posting about it here, is that the game's official website is now offline. So is the band's website. As far as I am aware, the band has only produced one album, (Cheer up, goth!) which is the one in this game. I don't know anything about the people in this band when it was about; did they break up, or did some of them die? Are they still around, but just playing in the underground Amsterdam music circles and are off the grid? I have no idea. But this game remains- and there is a literal band on the stage in this game. Not only has this game outlived its creators but, in a way, it's a time capsule to the music they did make. From making a game to advertise your music, to the game being all the remains. Long after the creators are dead, and all of us are dead for that matter, the band in this game remains, the party never ending. While you could say this is true in every form of media, a game where someone's art is continued on gives me the feeling of its own mysticism.