Game Manifesto

"The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood."

Otto von Bismarck

Here is where you will find my thoughts

Do you like playing tactical games with other folks or want to play video games like Xcomm co-operativly with friends? I do, so thus I am conceiving of this game to address this market need.

Basic Concepts

  • Game type - Turn Based, Tactical, Stratagy, with light RPG elements
  • Skirmish level engagements (8 – 18 combatants per side)
  • Rule of eight – I am trying to have eight of everything (Where possible) examples include:
    1. Eight factions, each with eight skills to choose from
    2. Eight different jobs with eight skills to choose from
    3. D88 loot table (so 64 possibilities)
    4. Eight scenarios, each with different permutations
  • Have all game types be Competitive and/or Cooperative
    • 1 player vs 1 player
    • 1 player vs 2 players(or more)
    • Group of players vs Group of players
    • 1 players vs AI
    • Group of players vs AI
    Put another way, I want each piece on the battle field to be able to be controlled by any number of players. Assumiung your side has 8 pieces, then Scenarios include:
    • Each pice is controlled by a different human
    • Four Humans control two pieces each
    • 1 Human controls all of the noobs, and another human controls all the specialists
    • You can see the possabilities (I hope)
  • A single set of rules that all must follow.
    • How many times have you been playing a game and said: "Must be nice" when an NPC had:
      • More HP than you can ever get
      • Have an item that you can't get
      • Had seemingly endless waves of (henchmen, stooge, lackys or whatever) to just your squad or worse, just you?
      • A scripted event prevented you from affecting something on the board
    • This means that in PC vs NPC combat, the game has to be smart in order to present a challenge to experienced players
  • Loot
    • As a follow-on from the previous item, all items that the opposion holds should be lootable by the PCs
    • This also should mean that items that the PCs have are lootable in the case of a loss or draw
  • Difficulty Levels
  • More to come

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

Seneca

Technology Involved

  • Endpoints: Web, Mobile, Desktop, Console - so everywhere
  • Infrastructure: Cloud
  • Machine Learning: Yes

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Thomas Paine

Games and their flaws

Let me be clear, these are strong games. They are not without faults however, and this is an attempt to draw on their example to do something better

Name* Description Flaws Merits
Gladius* Video Game: Turn Based, Tactical, RPG
  • Old
  • Not activly supported
  • Short
  • Was not super pretty even in its day
  • Didn't sell very well, so there was no sequel
  • Game play was not very deep, and also not particularly wide
  • Unbalanced in some regards
  • Some debilitating bugs
  • Co-Op was superb
  • Easy to learn
  • Story was simple, but good
  • Characters were interesting
  • Progression was ok
  • Decent variety in the game arenas
XComm 1 & 2 Video Game: Turn Based, Tactical, with extensive side managment
  • NO CO-OP
  • Multiplayer only consists of 1-v-1
  • Occasasionally punishingly difficult
  • High variety of game maps
  • excellent community support via Steam
  • challenging
Miniature games like 40K or Starwars Armada In person collectable miniature tactical game
  • Expensive
  • Must meet in person to play
  • Pace can be slow
  • Immersion is low
  • Can take weeks and/or months to fully paint your minis
  • Role playing is difficult is not non existant
  • People who are WAAC are wak
  • Can be unbalanced
  • Can be looked at as a hobby rather than as a game
  • Game designers sometimes make odd decisions on what to model and what to abstract
  • Lore is genrally amazing
  • In person events are great way to meat new people
  • Strong faction variety
  • Can be looked at as a hobby rather than as a game
  • Rolling tons of dice can be fun
Torchlight 2 Video Game, Dialbo clone
  • Controls are to simplistic
  • I am not a fan of the art style, this is subjective, I know
  • Only 4 classes
  • Co-op is pretty good
  • Random locations are pretty good
  • Ditto with the quests
  • Simple to learn
  • Mod support
MMOs like WoW or Guldwars 2 Video Game, Massivly Multiplayer
  • Must compete with random folks in order to gain resources
  • Drop dependant, and therefore you need to...
  • Grind, not as big a concern in GW2
  • WoW is old, and looks old in some instances
  • Gathering friends can be difficult if you are on different servers
  • In game choises are not impactfull - Guild Wars 2 at least pretends to care what you do in game
  • Joining in an event with dozens or even a hundred other people is great fun
  • seemingly endless content
  • Variety in pay models
  • customizations galore
GuildWars 1 Video Game, Instanced online multiplayer
  • Because everything is instanced, friends can't join in the middle of a quest
  • Old and no longer supported, officially
  • Not all character types welcome in all situations
  • Private Instances
  • Collectitable skills
  • Must work togeather as a group to succeed in most tasks
* Means there are additional notes below
Name Link Notes
Gladius Wiki To this day, this game has an amazing co-op system modern turn based games can learn from this one
Divinity Orginal Sin 2 DOS2 DOS2 enable humans to control the entire party. The PC version even has splitscreen.
Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator Steam NOT a StarTrek Co-op game
Necromunda Games Workshop A major source of inspiration
Kill Team Games Workshop Similar to Necromunda
WarmaHordes Privateer Press PP picked up the skirmish ball from GW after GW stopped making Necromunda and made it their own.
Dust Tactics Dust Another interesting tabletop miniature game
Dungeons and Dragons DND Wizards
Magic the Gathering MTG Wizards
Roll20 Roll20 Web The best tabletop simulator out there (in my opinion)
TaleSpire YouTube This project has a bunch of ideas that I want to do here.
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War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

George Orwell