The theory behind my combat system (Patreon)

This picture at the top is actually already in Attack of the Nega Maids, but I thought it would make a nice header for this post about the combat system. It's a hard to find scene, so you probably haven't seen it, and it also gives Kimiko the chance to remind you that she's a bad ass bitch.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk a little about how the actual gameplay ideas behind the combat system in PAL and how I designed it to work.

Vulnerable points

Each monster you fight has vulnerable points. The game is to try and work out what the vulnerable spots are through classic text adventure puzzling. I'm rather proud of that innovation - there hadn't been a whole lot of actually interesting text based combat systems before because there was no real gameplay to them. So I came up with a system that was built around time and statistic management, just like the main game is, and deductive exploration and examining just like a classic text adventure. That way you are using the same skill set in the combat that you use in the rest of the game.

Here's a new monster I've introduced in Attack of the Nega Maids - this handsome fellow is called the 'whyena'.

If you're not already familiar with the way the system works I'll explain (although I'm sure many readers will be more than familiar by now). Basically, you examine the creature and you get this description:

This unsettling monster is a laughing, braying mockery of natural animals like the hyena. It has an instinctively cruel and vicious sense of humour; it likes to torment its victims because pain and suffering are the things that really tickle its funny bone. Its slavering mouth is always wide with laughter and its crazed eyes are wide with malevolence. Its claws, teeth and horns all look long and dangerous - any one of them could likely tear a person open.

Then you work out where to target your attacks. You know that if you hit a vulnerable spot it will do extra damage and will either stun or weaken the enemy. So based on that description what do you attack? I won't spoil it, but all the body parts mentioned are also implemented as parts of its body, so you can examine them and work it out.

That means, of course, that to some extent I've harnessed the classic text adventure puzzling style of gameplay into a combat system. Traditionally you'd enter a room, examine a bunch of stuff and try to solve certain object-based puzzles. While my combat system isn't object based, it's still got a significant portion of that gameplay just through the need to examine monsters and body parts.

Time management

An important part of the system is that examining things doesn't pass any 'real time' in the combat, so you are free to investigate as much as you like without sacrificing any combat efficiency. Other text combat systems I've seen made any actions, like examining or checking your stats, trigger an enemy response. That's a pain because it gives you no 'thinking time'; in theory you do have as much time as you need but you can't justify taking the 'thinking' actions like examining, etc., so that's why I implemented combat rounds as a thing separate to the built in 'turns' you take in the engine whenever you type a phrase.

The main game is really about choosing what the best actions to make will be to achieve your goals when you have limited time and resources. I really feel like a failure in other text combat systems was that while you may have been enjoying the gameplay up until that point the combat is so different it feels like a rough transition. Maybe you were good at the previous part of the game, but not good at the combat. Therefore I wanted the combat to use that same skill set of time and stats management. Each time you take a combat action you trigger a response from the enemy, so you need to make sure whatever move you make is an efficient one, just like when you make a decision about flirting or training, which are also about maximising the efficiency of your time management.

Monster special abilities and powers add variation

I really like special powers and random abilities that change the 'tactical profile' of the enemies you're fighting. By that I mean there should be a significant difference between fighting a trollish slime and fighting an eagle-eyed gazor. In AotNM I wanted to push that even further with interesting new monsters that require new tactics to beat, plus random powers that mess with your usual methods.

Furthermore, I'm conscious of the fact that the game is designed to be replayed a lot, so the combat needs to be unpredictable and throw up surprising challenges for you. The game now has 18 monsters and 17 potential bonus powers, plus hit points are partially random (some monsters always get more, but there's a random element too) and the monsters level up with Kenji and scale with the passage of time. This means that hopefully each fight should be quite distinctive and you won't just experience totally the same experience, even if you're often just trying to hit the stunning vulnerable point as much as possible. I also think that now you may well not encounter several monsters throughout an entire run, because 18 is really quite a lot. Who knows? I might even add more at some point; I do enjoy building the combat system. :)

I'm about to go on holiday!

By the way, I just thought I'd mention that I wrote this in advance and I've set it to post just as I'm heading off on my holiday! I'll still be posting more updates even when I'm gone and I'll be back in a couple of weeks, plus I'll respond to anything you post, it might just take me a bit longer because I'm going to be on planes for... uh... a LONG time, so I'll definitely reply to you, but it might take a couple of days. :) 

I hope you've been giving the updated combat system a try. If you have, what do you think of it? Have you had any interesting surprises? Have your maids been entangled by a woodsprit, paralysed by a statue or blown up by a bbbomb? Have you dealt with an invulnerable enemy, or an unshakeable enemy? Is anything still confounding you? I'd also be interested in what you think about these ideas behind the game's design, if you have any thoughts, opinions or comments about them. Let me know in the comments!