Dev Journal: Vessel Tactics' Predecessor (Patreon)

    I think, in game design, your first idea is rarely going to be a good one. Or your second. Or your third or fourth or fifth. It's a very iterative process, and by the time you actually get to something worth making you're probably going to be working with the off-shoot of an off-shoot of an off-shoot. In VT's case, it's built on the skeleton of another game I was planning on making in 2021, which was itself a culmination of many other ideas I'd had over the years dating all the way back to 2011. 

    Like VT, this game was a turn-based strategy game with a large cast of characters, an anime artstyle, possibly some kind of free gacha mechanic, and... that's about where the similarities end. It wasn't 18+, had completely different gameplay, and only had vore of the non-sexy variety. While I did put a good amount of work into it, I ultimately decided that it would be better to wait on the idea and put it to the side. Since the first things I made for it were the tilemap and turn system, though, I was able to salvage those when I started working on VT.

    This game's main inspirations were a roguelike called Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup and a little manga who may have heard of recently called Dungeon Meshi. I really wanted to make a game that matched that aesthetic of a group of adventurers delving into a dungeon and working together to uncover its secrets, even if it cost them their lives a few times. Just as important, I wanted the dungeon itself to feel like it was an enemy, with the player needing to procure food, handle traps, and choose their path carefully based on their party. Reaching the end of the dungeon would be legitimately very difficult and require a lot of knowledge and forethought.

    A prominent feature of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the huge number of races you can play and the many differences between them. I wanted my game to reflect that, with each character having many attributes that needed to be accounted for when delving based on their race and personality. How one tackles each situation might change completely from one party to another, and certain routes may not be accessible at all without the right characters. Each one would have a trade-off, and there would always be something else to consider.

    The gameplay system was also rather unique, though I still have no idea if it would actually be fun or not. When two units entered combat, instead of just whacking each other, they'd be placed into a JRPG battle scene where they could choose attacks and skills as their turn came up in the turn order. On their turn, units could also disengage, move, and reenter battle if they chose, though staying in one would grant bonuses. Battles that started near each other would be combined into one, and non-ranged units would take a damage penalty based on their range in tiles from their target. Certain units, mages in particular, would also be able to attack at range without initiating combat, but it would come at the cost of MP and they would be fairly squishy as a trade-off.

    Since TBS gameplay can be rather plodding and ill-suited to a roguelite dungeon-crawler, the game would be split into two main modes. One mode, where you could use any party and loadout to make a serious attempt to reach the bottom of the randomized dungeon, with each floor being a single stage, and a story mode where you would accept missions in town and fight through single stages. Both would be valid ways to unlock content and progress through the game, though either way the player's ultimate goal would be to reach the bottom and defeat the final boss. 

    As for why I gave up on it, there were a few reasons. First is, again, I realized its scope was too ambitious for me since it required so much unique asset creation. Next is... a TBS roguelite with JRPG style battles sounds interesting on paper, but will that really be fun? It would take a huge amount of work, more than I've done on VT so far, for me to even get to the point where I could tell. And finally, trying to stand out from the crowd as a medieval fantasy TBS when that exact genre gets big, high-quality releases every year is, even if hypothetically possible, more than a little intimidating.

    It was thinking about how to solve those issues that likely led me to VT. Even if it's still a bit ambitious, VT has a much more manageable scope which I can actually accomplish without needing a big team. It also has more tried and true gameplay with a core mechanic guaranteed to be fun and engaging to its audience (Vore) and it easily stands out from the crowd through its unique worldbuilding and setting (Vore again.) 

    What I'm really getting at here is if you're an aspiring game developer and you aren't sure if your game idea is any good or not, just put vore in it and it will solve all your problems. And by that I mean, don't get discouraged if an idea you put a lot of thought into doesn't end up being feasible or you need to abandon a project because it wasn't working out, just use that experience to make your next project even better. ...Given, I'm saying that as a fairly inexperienced dev whose first game is still in pre-alpha, but even so.

...No, but for real though, also just put vore in it. I'm begging you, please, I need more vore games to play.