devlog

My take on turn-based

A fantasy turn-based RPG with opinionated combat mechanics derived throughout my entire lifetime of playing video games.

By opariffazman

Why I dread turn-based games

Back in the day, I never really liked the premise of turn-based RPGs but I did played the heck out of them, so don’t get me wrong. Especially ones in the first Playstation 1 like Wild Arms, Jade Cocoon, Suikoden, Final Fantasy & Digimon World series.

It was totally fine when I was a kid playing them. But nowadays, I no longer see the appeal of not having complete control of the combat flow. Both parties just take turns to hurt each other, there’s even parody skit about it by the legendary Viva La Dirt League.

I saw it as a limitation of game development capabilities or lack of creative direction back then. Or maybe it is just a straight up adaptation of classic D&D tabletop games to video games. But here’s the thing, there’s a major difference comparing video games with those epic D&D moments like the whole face-to-face experience setting where everyone’s gathered around.

So there must be a way, a different way to deliver an enjoyable turn-based combat experience for a video game right? Lo and behold, heavily inspired by 2025 Game Of The Year Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and also one of my son’s first RPG Mario & Luigi: Brothership spiced with my own opinionated twist, still undecided on the game name yet but a project code-named D20 was born.

Early screenshots

Stills from the first builds, from late September. Who don’t enjoy parry-ing?

A hooded ranger crouches on a plain green field beside a pink block enemy with a raised hammer. The word TING! floats above them, and counters in the top left read parry 1, dodge 0, hit 0.
27 Sep: the toy parry test. A greybox enemy winds up and the parry lands with a TING!
A hooded ranger in green stands on a dirt road between two timber-framed village houses, with tall grass, a wooden fence and a blue sky. The scene has ink outlines and flat cel shading.
28 Sep: A draft playground for the turn-based combat to take place.
A hooded ranger faces two small enemies on a village road, with parry and dodge prompts on the right and the enemy's high-attack tell and health bar above.
29 Sep: A playable vertical slice to design and tune the parry mechanics.