This little Giffle Reel shows a simulated battle between two knights for my game Arthane. The idea would be to have a simultaneous action selection and/or action queue mechanics to determine the knights' movements:
- left foot forward
- right foot forward
- sidestep left (but only if leaning right with weight on right foot)
- sidestep right (but only if leaning left with weight on left foot)
- swing weapon towards front of body
- swing weapon back towards side of body
- swing shield to front or to side, etc.
The grey knight (2nd prototype) has magnets on the hands and feet. There is a steel plate underneath the print out board and a steel sword made from an old bicycle spoke.
The black knight (1st prototype) just has the shield and sword stuck on.
I need to make another good prototype and then make a system for the action selection. I think dice could be a good option, with one colour being for movement of the feet and another colour for movement of the arms, provided there are 6 possible movements for each. Otherwise I guess cards even though they're fiddlier to design. Cards would allow more complex movements and possibly some special moves.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to achieve here is a test of player cunning and skill rather than a luck-based dice rolling combat system.
To make it interesting, there will be different moves available depending on characters' stats and equipment, so a heavily armoured knight will have the basic moves shown here, whereas a lightly armoured rogue could do cartwheels (this actually works with magnets on hands and feet).
At some point I will try to introduce a magic system as well, which will also be skill based by forming words from runes/tiles (like in Scrabble).
