Core Ideas

This is largely just a repo that contains the core ideas behind the current suite of games being considered for development.

Core Concept

I have a core game concept that revolves around:

• A hope/dungeon-punk setting
  • Largely told via Visual Novel presentation
• Multi-grid conflict (abstract node, square, hex)
  • Abstract nodes: a set of nodes connected by edges, can be used for hacking-adjacent conflict
  • Square nodes: traditional, old-school, good for "in-building" or "ground game"
  • Hex nodes: tactical, good for "open field" or "large unit"
• Async turn-based conflict with "battle resolver"
  • Players simultaneously take turns; no passing of priority back and forth
  • Players can lock in some number of actions based on current unit positions
  • Players can lock in a desired movement action for their next turn
  • Players then commit; once all players committed (or time limit reached) battle resolver takes over
  • Battle resolver processes all actions, handles any state management, then processes movement, then sends results to clients
• Unit building/upgrading
  • Desire for a "rhombus" tiering system that caters to progression that is "vertically shallow but horizontally broad" with a bottom taper
    • A few "Tier 0" items that are broad-purpose, super easy to acquire, unspecialized
    • A good amount of "Tier 1" items that are narrow-purpose, takes some effort to acquire, more effective
    • A large amount of "Tier 2" items that are specialized, high effort to create, very effective in their domain
  • Units are comprised of some "frame" which is equipped with "gear"
  • The composite frame and gear determines what the player is able to do on a map

Single-Player Title

There is an intention to build a single-player game first, largely as a proof-of-concept and demo title for the larger concept. This is largely intended to be a visual novel with enough of the combat/improve gameplay loop that players can determine if they like the execution while at the same time alluding to a path for a larger world.

"MMO-lite"

There is a larger-scale goal of building a lightweight MMORPG. Instead of "persistent world that can be walked around in" it'd be more of a game lobby with much of the same trappings of the single-player title, but with far more depth to inventory, building, crafting, markets, etc. Conflict can be far more multi-modal, with opportunities for things like extraction-looter, arena, etc. The goal would be to enable a much larger world to be represented where players could play with friends and against other people (as well as non-player adversaries).