Motivations and Game Comparisons

I want to play an XCOM game that doesn’t have combat with random events and outcomes (rng), has some multiplayer/replayability elements, and lots of customizability in a way that doesn’t force a meta.

Initial Motivations: Eternal Return, Eternally Written, Deathless

Closest Comparisons and Direction: W40k Rogue Trader, King Arthur Knight’s Tale, Wasteland 3

Eternal Return is too complex and micromanaging mechanically intense. As I’m getting older, I would like to look at concepts that Eternal Return gives without having to constantly practice, age making me worse, and playing competitively.

ISBS (Immortal Soul Black Survival) or Project Lumia have a limited number of mechanics and focus on building too much. I rather focus on characters than constantly be bottlenecked by item design. Also, the randomness and constant competitive aspect is not too fun to me, along with gameplay being very button-mash heavy (spamming attack button).

Eternally Written was extremely limited due to me being the only host and mechanics being very difficult to understand. Content is completely limited on my creativity and ability, and items severely made the game harder to update and build.

Deathless was an interesting concept that may eventually be a thing- the main failure point of this project to me was my own lack of ability to create art all the time. Pawns of Despair can function without art, yet can improve with art too.

W40k Rogue Trader has a lot of mechanics that I really like, and RNG is not as important when you can potentially become so strong. 6 units are a lot more fun than the usual 4 in a CRPG-style game. However, Rogue Trader is heavily built around story and semi-linear progression (to a CRPG’s extent) where levels are repeated, similar to Knights Tale. Rogue Trader has a unique separation of movement and AP/abilities, in which I would like to implement the movement and AP/ability separation.

King Arthur’s Knights Tale is also closer to my vision with specific heroes and skill trees, but has a limit of replayability since missions are generally the same. Roguelike features like random fight generation will help with this. AP cost to attacking feels good, there isn’t rng and characters feel very strong when leveled with mobility and high damage. Gameplay is almost to a T on what I’d like to build. Gameplay also allows for unique characters in a more sandbox style, allowing for different types of units in different scenarios (e.g. bigger boss type units controlled). The unique characters and globalization of units is really good and something I’d like. Mobility is limited to abilities a lot due to the AP system, which restricts mobility, as both AP and movement are combined.

Wasteland 3 is similar to Rogue Trader. AP system feels pretty good- though there could be more movement, AP and repeated attacks, and generally more actions per character. Similar CRPG mechanics, but less depth than Rogue Trader. I don’t want to be dealing with CRPG-style mechanics and story elements that are extremely lengthy, and replayability is too dependent on the story. Mobility is limited to abilities a lot due to the AP system, which restricts mobility, as both AP and movement are combined.

XCOM is too hard to play consistently and remember the previous setup of bases, missions completed, upgrades, and soldier statuses. Also rng is unfun to me in general.

Into the Breach is closer to what I want, but I still like systems such as cover systems, abilities, and other dynamic gameplay elements in XCOM. Puzzle gameplay is cool, but limited health and shown enemy attacks/spawns are different gameplay loops than what I want.

Ignited Steel is similar to Into the Breach but has bigger HP pools and heavier combat overall. The biggest issue is that you MUST win every fight, if you lose even slightly, your run is over, compared to Into the Breach which has progressive losses (losing a resource or life instead of the entire run).

Honkai Star Rail is similar in aesthetic to ER’s gameplay (anime style), but the turn-based combat is different. There are limited actions per character, and the gacha gameplay is not something I want.

Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon 2 are interesting and fun, but are too brutal to play consistently and are not as dynamic due to a single tile system. The games are built in a way where a single line of your units fight another set of units, with units moving only on one axis, which is limited in terms of gameplay (yet still provides a lot of strategy and thinking). Rng again is not something I want in the long run.

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children is similar to what we’re making, though has too many elements in skill trees and different stats. This game also uses the 2 action per unit gameplay mechanic, which limits the amount of actions per character immediately. The story is similar to Eternal Return in style of writing and direction (as both are Korean style games).

Divinity Original Sin 2 is another good game, close in terms of gameplay, but less close in terms of long term gameplay, leveling systems, and items. There’s minimal rng in this game, but the game is railroaded with the CRPG act/story system. Characters feel very powerful and generally the game feels smooth to play. Movement is not tile-based, but rather heavily focused on turn based pathing systems. The movement and AP being separated feels great and is what I want.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is similar to Divinity Original Sin 2, but has less power due to constricted DnD rulesets. This game deviates from what I want a bit further, though it is a great CRPG.

Mainframe Defenders is very similar to what I want to build, though I would like to change the art style and some mechanics to be more advanced. The roguelike portion is rather similar to something I’d build and play.

Skygard Arena has many similar skill tree, persona (different classes same character) concepts that are pretty cool and similar. The game is much simpler, and is generally based on an arena style game mode, but overall is cool and similar to what I’d design.

Pathway has a similar character selection and skill tree, but skill tree is fairly limited and each character is too similar to one another. There are many CRPG-like elements in the roguelike with maps being the same, though the roguelike aspect has different events and character traits taking effect. There is also an inventory and roguelike external gameplay loop, involving branching selection of paths and places to go to, which is somewhat similar to the concepts of a roguelike out of combat metagame that I have. The unlock system is interesting and could be something to consider. The turn based gameplay is closer to 2 AP system (move and attack).

Atlas Reactor is VERY similar to what we are building, with skill trees, teams and selectable characters, and moba and xcom style combination of a gameplay loop. However, it is purely focused on multiplayer moba gameplay, along with having two separate loops (fourlancer vs controlling a single character). This game also focuses on making sure all teams go at once, making the game hard to get exact hits with a larger action space. Pawns of Despair will be balanced as a “fourlancer” style experience, controlling a large number of characters. Our game also avoids the moba summoner spells, multiplayer focus, and moba single character focus. The actual combat and skill trees are fairly similar.

Lamplighter League has the external systems around skill tree, shop, and map that are quite similar to something I’d want to build. However, the turn based gameplay is very similar to xcom, with randomness and a 2 AP move-attack system.

Engage is a game that I played a long time ago, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It is a flash game- turn based with a 1 move 1 attack system, with shop, upgrade, and map jumping systems to allow you to fight different groups of enemies repeatedly in space combat. This game is very old and I am placing it here for nostalgia with some relevance to the game concept; even this long ago were there games like this.

Aesthetic is similar to Battle Brothers, but I never played this game.

Heroes of the Storm has a talent tree system that is well fit for what I’d like for skill trees. Same as Partisans 1941, which has an amazingly similar skill tree system.

Many of these games don’t have multiplayer and I would like to play some sort of turn based gameplay cooperative or even competitive with friends.