Hey everybody, this is my first post.
I was playing Smash Bros and was inspired to make a fighting game as a board game. I showed the idea to my friend, so we went and bought a whiteboard and some markers and made a prototype, each of us making new characters every match. We have a grid based field which your fighters move around on, and the game is turn based.
To vanquish your opponent, simply hit them until they have no health left.
Here are some of our design considerations:
What we didn't want, was for the two combatants to engage once and trade attacks until only one man remained. We wanted the battles to be tactically dynamic, and for the fighters to always be striving to hold the best possible position on the board.
A character who cannot deal damage quickly probably makes up for this by having great control of the space on the field. He threatens many spaces with movement based abilities, uses environmental abilities that linger on the field many turns later, or perhaps uses abilities that have a great area of effect.
Because a small grid with two fighters on it is strategically limited in scope, and unlike some wargames, has little inherent complexity, we felt it necessary to introduce a few subtleties into the rules to compensate.
The prototype ended up being pretty fun. If anyone here thinks this game idea sounds interesting, I will post the rules of the game.
Love,
Chorkstain
So you're saying that many of your attacks have specific ranges? That's definitely something we've got and it definitely encourages manoeuvering about the field.
As for level design, we're still just at a bare field, but I'm looking to implement structures and environmental hazards soon.
So far, we are going with a roster of characters, each with five abilities at their disposal. Each ability has its own cooldown time, and on your turn, you may use any number of abilities you wish, so long as they are fully charged. Some abilities may be used defensively, which is in essence at any time during your opponent's turn. For example, one of our fighters has the 'Dash' ability. You can normally only move one space on your turn (and before using abilities) but Dash also allows you to move one space. Dash may be used defensively, too. So you might use Dash to evade an attack, but you won't be able to use it to close in on your opponent. Likewise, you might use it to close the distance between you and your opponent to attack, but leave yourself vulnerable to things you might have evaded.
This particular circumstance led to a way in which we wanted to categorise attacks, into 'Target Position' and 'Target Player'. They do exactly as their names might suggest, so 'Fire Arrow', which is a 'Target Position' attack, can be easily evaded by a Dash manoeuvre, since the move targets the position that the target player will no longer occupy. A regular arrow attack might be less powerful, but if it is a 'Target Player' attack, then the only way the defender might avoid the attack is by actually moving outside the possible range of the attack, otherwise the attacker merely redirects his attack to where the target is now standing.
P.S. How do your 'combat cards' work?