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Quick background: I'm a professional programmer working on enterprise systems. I used to be in the game industry. I miss making games. I've wanted to make a tabletop-esque fantasy battle game for a long time, and have finally gotten around to starting it as a hobby project. Ok there, quick background done.

This is a hobby project for me and I want to make it because I think it'd be fun to play. Any external interest would be additional motivation, and if there is any I'd want to set up a simple site or a wiki or something, or maybe a dev blog. Maybe a subreddit, as that'd be super simple and actually pretty handy.

I figured I'd ask here: would anyone have any interest in playing a fantasy-based tabletop game that isn't Vassal? It's 3D, built with an actual enforced ruleset in mind that's designed for a video game environment instead of relying on Vassal-esque honor code with weird interactions, hopefully playable on iPad with asynchronous multiplayer as a stretch goal down the road so you can essentially play Fantasy Battles With Friends in your spare time instead of having to devote a ton of time staring at someone thinking.

I've got some basic stuff up and running already, and plenty of notes jotted down design-wise. If there's interest I'll start organizing all that into something people can look at and critique and give general feedback on.

(edit)

Added a link to sig, think a subreddit would be the way to go to organize things and get people together for now.

As a huge fan of anything turn based I'd definitely be interested. Would the idea be built around ranked units or a more individual soldier skirmish battles?

 Eldarain wrote:
As a huge fan of anything turn based I'd definitely be interested. Would the idea be built around ranked units or a more individual soldier skirmish battles?

Ranked units as the main focus. I want good positioning and tactics to be rewarded significantly.

How are you approaching movement values and modifications to them when wheeling/turning etc?

 Eldarain wrote:
How are you approaching movement values and modifications to them when wheeling/turning etc?

Current plan:

Each unit has a maximum movement value. Moving straight forward eats up linear movement. Wheeling takes the arc length of the outer front corner's path as it describes a partial circle. Sounds more complicated than it is.

Alternatively, you can move the entire unit and completely change its facing/formation within a small area defined as some fraction of the total movement value. This would eat up all your movement, but would let you regroup.

I might be. Depends on how well it's done. I enjoyed turn-based strategy games like fire emblem or FFT, as well as real-time strategy games of a similar bent such as the Kessen series, and this should be fairly similar.

 Melissia wrote:
I might be. Depends on how well it's done. I enjoyed turn-based strategy games like fire emblem or FFT.

This would be more along the lines of turn-based Total War with a more casual/gamey feel than FFT. Though I do love those series as well.

 Evertras wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
How are you approaching movement values and modifications to them when wheeling/turning etc?

Current plan:

Each unit has a maximum movement value. Moving straight forward eats up linear movement. Wheeling takes the arc length of the outer front corner's path as it describes a partial circle. Sounds more complicated than it is.

Alternatively, you can move the entire unit and completely change its facing/formation within a small area defined as some fraction of the total movement value. This would eat up all your movement, but would let you regroup.

As long as it's clear to the player what their options are that sounds effective.

How will shooting and close combat work? Will damage to the unit affect it's footprint or will it remain the same until removed? Will there be a morale system?

I also mentioned the Kessen series, if you haven't played it I recommend at least Kessen III.

 Eldarain wrote:
As long as it's clear to the player what their options are that sounds effective.

How will shooting and close combat work? Will damage to the unit affect it's footprint or will it remain the same until removed? Will there be a morale system?

One of my major goals is going to be ease of entry; easy to play, hard to master. And that's easy to say, but hard to pull off, but generally I want to keep the controls and such as simple and obvious as possible with plenty of simple visual feedback.

There are three phases: Movement, Shooting, and Combat. Magic and other abilities can be used during the appropriate phase, depending on their effect.

Shooting is straightforward. Click a unit that can shoot, click its target that's in its front 45 degree arc, they shoot at it. Depending on their skill and the weapon they used, they have a chance to hit and chance to wound.

Combat is a little more complicated under the surface, but should be intuitive enough to understand the results on the surface. If you're fighting in the front, first two ranks can attack. If you're fighting from the flank or rear, only those directly in contact can attack. Chance to hit depends entirely on the attacker's skill. Chance to wound works with strength/toughness. Armor adds directly to toughness, but is a separate value so it can become an interesting variable for effects to modify.

I do want a morale system, but I don't want to overcomplicate it. That's something I'm still trying to flesh out.

One thing I really want to bring into play is terrain. Terrain can do really neat things like allow you to hide a unit in a forest for an ambush flank, actually block LoS and require you to use scouting units. Another thing still being fleshed out, but something I want to incorporate heavily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
I also mentioned the Kessen series, if you haven't played it I recommend at least Kessen III.

I've never heard of them before, and will absolutely check that out. Thanks!

It sounds really promising. I look forward to seeing this evolve.

Good to hear, hopefully I can see it through.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Created a subreddit in my sig.

Looks like this is moving forward. Got two artists and a second programmer to help out. Please feel free to hop on the subreddit and take a look at the wiki for design details and give some feedback!

Something simular to WHFBs? The way you describe it makes it seem so. Definitely will keep my eye on the project.

Yep. Certainly won't be the same, but should hopefully be a lot of fun!

I feel dirty bumping this, so feel free to smack me. I'd really love some feedback on the information provided in the wiki, though. Does this seem like it's enough to make combat interesting? Do you see anything that's glaringly missing, or anything that looks unfun?

For actual development, got some stuff up and running but not enough to screenshot yet. On the way!