INTENTS: Man to Man
Welcome to a weird side scrolling turn based tactical combat RPG little game made for the #LOWREZJAM 2016.
"You take the role of an unnamed captured soldier thrown into an arena and have to fight through several enemies before you can claim victory and, hopefully, be allowed to live."

Each fight is 1 vs 1, turn based where you and the AI will select various actions to perform and move around the arena. Inspired by GURPS, the rule-set for combat is a bit complex (or obscure) for a Game Jam so reading the brief manual below might be handy.
The AI use a weight-table system to determine it's action. Far from perfect, it still shouldn't do anything completely stupid. Each enemy also has a "personality" of sort so that some enemies will take their time and be more defensive while others might just go full attack non stop.
As a note, I was going for more serious AI names at first but wanted to do some sound and there was no way I could make anything I recorded with my crappy mic sound not goofy so I adapted the names.


Enjoy!


CONTROLS:

S : turn sound on/off
ESCAPE: quits back to main menu
SPACEBAR: during your turn, to END TURN.
MOUSEWHEEL UP/DOWN (or +/- from keypad): rotate FACING (yellow marker on miniature base).
0, 1-6 (Alpha): Select MANEUVER for that turn.
TAB: Toggles on/off display of MANEUVER panel and/or CHARACTER PANEL during your turn. Handy to see the battle field before selecting a maneuver.
T: (debug)during AI turns if it gets stuck


INTERFACE:

  • Upper left number is your MOVE left for the turn.
  • Upper right cross is the turn indicator (blue for you, red for enemy). Click on it to END TURN (or just press SPACEBAR)
  • Bottom message that appears is the AI current chosen battle action for this turn.
  • Action effects will appear during battle above the actors' heads (MISS, HIT, etc)
  • Little red squares will appear during battle on TORSO, ARMS or LEGS. For TORSO, this indicates the actor is not at full HP. For ARMS and LEGS, this indicate a CRIPPLED state (which, as a one off but permanent, reduce skills/stats quite a bit).
  • The small YELLOW markers on the actors's base is FACING. The 3 squares in front of the actor are FRONT. The 1 square directly behind is BEHIND. The other squares are SIDE.

CHARACTER CREATION:

  • The ARMOUR type (light/heavy) determines your MAX MOVE, DAMAGE RESISTANCE and ARMOR LOAD PENALTY (which impacts all skills).
  • LOADOUT allows for either a THRUSTING BROADSWORD (SWORD) or a SHORT SWORD & SHIELD (SWORD & SHIELD).
  • SWORD provides better attack skill and damage (espectially Thrusting attacks that manage to pierce the armor) but only PARRY or DODGE as active defenses.
  • SWORD & SHIELD provides better defenses overall as well as a good BLOCK value but a bit less attack skill than just SWORD and lower damage, which can be rough against Heavy armored opponents.
  • To change your character's FACE, just click on it.

MANEUVERS
0 - DO NOTHING: duh
1 - MOVE: allows full move. Rotating cost a move.
2 - MOVE and ATTACK: move and attack during though at lowered chance skill. Rotating cost a move.
3 - ATTACK: allows a step in any direction and an attack. Rotating is free (do before attack).
4 - ALL OUT ATTACK: allow movement (forward only) and a special attack (either very PRECISE, STRONG damage or DOUBLE ATTACK!) but NO DEFENSE UNTIL NEXT ROUND! Rotate cost a move.
5 - ALL OUT DEFENSE: allows a step in any direction and boosts your active defense for a turn. Rotating is free.
6 - EVALUATE: allows a step in any direction and stacks up bonus to hit until next attack or until hurt. Up to 4 stacks (not displayed :/)

MOVING AROUND
Click on the tile you want to move into.
Rotate using Mousewheel (or +/-). Do before moving and/or attacking usually.

ATTACKING
Attacks are processed as follows:

  1. Attacker indicates type of attack.
  2. Attacker indicates desired hit location.
  3. Attacker rolls 3D6 and compares the result to a modified "effective attacj skill" rating (base skill modified by shock penalty, armor penalty, position of actors, etc)

IF the roll is equal or below the rating, the Defender now defends himself. Otherwise, attack is just a miss.

  1. Defender processes best defense available (usually highest, this is automatic)
  2. Defender rolls 3D6 and compares the result to a modified "effective defense skill" rating (base skill modified by shock penalty, armor penalty, position of actors, etc)

IF the roll is equal of below the rating, the Defender successfully defended and the attack is over usually (ALL OUT ATTACK, Double attack get to attack twice)
IF the roll is above the rating, the Defender is hit and damage is calculated
Note that if the Attacker rolls a CRITICAL HIT, the Defender cannot defend at all.
Also note that Defending from an attack coming from the side carries a very small penalty. From behind is almost impossible to defend! Careful with your facing.

DAMAGE:

  • If Hit, the Attacker rolls for Damage, which varies depending if SWING or THRUST was chosen during the attack selection.
  • To this Damage is substracted the DAMAGE RESISTANCE of the target.
  • The remaining Damage is penetrating and depending on hit location is multiplied/modified.
  • Current HP of the target is then reduced by the Damage that penetrated.

HEALTH:

  • Any damage taken inflicts a SHOCK penalty (all skills) for a full turn equal to the damage done (up to a limit).
  • Once an Actor reaches 0 or below, he needs to pass a health check at the end of each of his turn to stay awake. If this fails, the battle is over.
  • Once an Actor reaches -2x max HP, he dies.

WINNING & Other stuff:

  • If you beat all enemies (or escape), you win the game. Grats!
  • After each battle, you'll get a small level up choice. Note that you do NOT regain any lost HP between battles unless you rest.
  • The system uses 3D6 to determine results. That means a curve bell mechanic which makes things like Evaluate and All Out Defense, which provide small flat boosts, actually quite powerful.
  • Escaping is "almost" impossible.

Have fun and don't hesitate to leave feedback

- Mutonizer.

v1.01a:
- Revamped entire thing to fit perfectly on a 64x64 pixel perfect grid.

v1.00b:
- Fixed damage indicators not displaying properly on all "lines".
- Tweaked aggressive AI weight tables a bit.
- Remade VS screens to remove weirdo blur pixels effect.
- Re-uploaded in 640x640.
- Changed debug key for AI turn if they somehow get stuck to "T". Backspace in a browser game was a bit dumb.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.