As I work on my 3rd Turn-Based Tactical game, I'm sharing my insights into how fundamental design choices affect the gameplay, and sprinkle it with a couple of specific hints how to solve some of the more common design problems.

1. Turn-Based Tactical design fundamentals
and a handful of tips
Kacper Szymczak

2. ABOUT ME
● 6 years as Multiplayer Designer at Techland
○ Call of Juarez 1,2,3
● 7 years as Lead Designer at CreativeForge Games
○ Hard West, Phantom Doctrine
● 2+ years as Creative Director/CEO at Artificer
○ working on our first turn-based tactical game

3. Hard West

4. Phantom Doctrine

5. ABOUT ARTIFICER
● Measure twice, cut once.
● The best studio for ambitious creatives.
● Without any personal sacrifices.
● Always hiring!

6. WHAT I MEAN BY TURN BASED TACTICAL
● Turn order
● Multiple characters
● Spatial positioning
● Primarily about combat

7. IMPORTANT REFERENCES

8. MUST KNOW
● Essential gaming
● Core of the genre
● Key to understanding what makes a good turn-based game

9. Xcom 2

10. Jagged Alliance 2

11. Into the Breach

12. Battle Brothers

13. SHOULD KNOW
● Interesting in their own regard
● Will expand your perspective

14. Gears Tactics

15. Valkyria Chronicles

16. Mutant: Year Zero

17. Invisible Inc.

18. OTHER HONORABLE MENTIONS
Mario + Rabbids BATTLETECH
Banner Saga
Phoenix Point

19. OTHER HONORABLE MENTIONS
Wargroove Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
Warhammer: Mechanicus
Fallout Tactics

20. FUNDAMENTAL SYSTEMS

21. GRID SYSTEM

22. GRID SYSTEM
Squares Hexes

23. Square grid
● Xcom
● Jagged Alliance 2
● Into the Breach
● Invisible Inc.
● Mutant: Year Zero
● Mario + Rabbids
● Banner Saga
● Phoenix Point
● Wargroove
● Fell Seal
● Warhammer: Mechanicus
● Fallout Tactics

24. Square grid
● Line of sight/line of fire fairly easy to read
● Good for blocky buildings, interiors
● Not so good for irregularly-shaped environment

25. Square grid
● Tricky adjacency - different distances to adjacent tiles

26. Square grid
● Good fit for urban areas
● Bad fit for outdoors, nature
● Good fit for gun-based games
● Bad fit for melee-based games

27. Hex grid
● Battle Brothers
● BATTLETECH

28. Hex grid
● Not good for regular-shaped environments

29. Hex grid
● Good for natural environment
● Good for big scale

30. Hex grid
● Not great for ranged combat -
unclear line of sight

31. Hex grid
● Adjacency convenient for melee combat

32. No grid
● Gears Tactics
● Valkyria Chronicles

33. No grid
● State of the art
● Mass-market potential
● Can be expensive,
especially with a simplified
cover system
● Gimmick?

34. ACTION POINT SYSTEM

35. ACTION POINT SYSTEM
● Simplified (~2 AP)
● Lots of AP
● Hybrid
● Real-time-ish

36. ● Xcom 2
● Gears Tactics
● Into the Breach
● Mutant: Year Zero
● Mario + Rabbids
Simplified (~2 AP)

37. Simplified (~2 AP)
● Easy to comprehend
● No math to do
● Don’t have to memorize AP costs
● Never left with a remaining handful of useless APs
● No room for subtleties
● Unfit for deep simulations
● Good enough for most games
● Fast play

38. Lots of AP
● Jagged Alliance 2
● Battle Brothers
● Invisible Inc.

39. ● Room for depth
● Slower play
● AP costs to remember
● Occasional remaining points
● Micromanagement can be tiring, especially in end-game
● Good for simulations
● Nerds love it, general public probably not so much
Lots of AP

40. Hybrid
Phoenix Point hybrid system:
● Small number of APs (4)
● Most actions take 2AP
● APs can be depleted partially
(movement)
APs are depleted partially
for a shorter move

41. Hybrid
● Rewards slow movement, slows the game down
● Deceptively simple, but not intuitive
● Added depth not a good deal for loss of simplicity
● Interesting design idea
● Not sure if worth it

42. Fallout Tactics:
● Medium-sized AP pools
● Issue orders in real-time
(as long as there are APs)
● APs replenish in real-time
Real-time-ish

43. Real-time-ish
● Loses the benefits of real-time - its sluggish
● Loses the benefits of turn-based - no time to think
● Dead end?
● Doubtful if worth exploring

44. TURN ORDER SYSTEM

45. TURN ORDER SYSTEM
● Turn per side
● Timeline with turns
● Continuous timeline
● Limited number of character per side each turn

46. Turn per side
● Xcom
● Jagged Alliance 2
● Into the Breach
● Mutant: Year Zero
● Invisible Inc.
● Gears Tactics
● Valkyria Chronicles
● BATTLETECH
● Mario + Rabbids

47. Turn per side
● Simple, common
● Little interruption, easy to execute a plan, easy to combo attacks/abilities
● Sluggish with lots of units
● Not great for huge battles
● Good for synergy

48. Timeline with turns
● In a turn, all units acts based on their Initiative stat
● Every unit acts once
● Battle Brothers
● Warhammer: Mechanicus
No more units,
turn ends here

49. Timeline with turns
● Battle is played one unit at a time
● Focus on the next big threat on timeline
● Unaffected by scale
● Great for huge battles
● Because of interruptions, not great for planning and synergy; reactionary

50. Continuous timeline
● Similar to timeline
● Initiative is also a cooldown
● There are no turns
● Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark

51. Continuous timeline
Compared to timeline with turns:
● initiative benefits can stack
● faster units can skip over slower units

52. Limited number of character per side each turn
● Player picks one character to move.
● Then the enemy picks one character to move.
● Skyshine's BEDLAM

53. Limited number of character per side each turn
● Game narrows down to ~2 units
● The reason it works in chess is units remain unengaged for most of the time,
and when they do, the engagement is instant

54. COVER SYSTEM

55. COVER SYSTEM
● Simplified
● Simulation
● Line-of-Sight only

56. Simplified
● Xcom
● Gears Tactics
● Mutant: Year Zero
● Mario + Rabbids

57. Simplified
● Accessible, readable
● Can feel counterintuitive at times
● Can generate silly situations (as with all
simplifications)
● Good for games about guns
● Mainstream appeal

58. Simulation
● Jagged Alliance 2
● Phoenix Point

59. Simulation
● Deep
● Can be hard to read
● Naturalistic
● Implementation has to be perfect to work; can be demanding
● Nerds love it
● For deep games about guns

60. Line-of-Sight only
● Cover merely defines lines of sight
● No added benefit from cover
● Battle Brothers
● Into the Breach

61. ● Very simple
● No depth
● Units roam more
● Symmetrical
● For melee games with an occasional bow
● Good if you don’t want to bother with covers in environment
Line-of-Sight only

62. ORIENTATION SYSTEM

63. ORIENTATION SYSTEM
● Always
● Never
● Sometimes

64. Full orientation
● Jagged Alliance 2
● Fell Seal

65. Full orientation
● Room for depth (backstabbing)
● Additional micromanagement
● Positioning can look weird
● Detrimental to visuals (limitations in idle animations, no cover-sticking)

66. No orientation
● Xcom
● Mutant: Year Zero
● Mario + Rabbids

67. No orientation
● Simple, quick
● Limited depth
● Looks great
● Some silly cases
● Overwatch hard to balance

68. Occasional orientation
● Phantom Doctrine
● Gears Tactics

69. ● Defensive play more interesting
● Better overwatch balance
● Visuals can be tricky (grid, overlapping cones)
● Overall - great
● If you have guns and overwatch, this is they way to do it
Occasional orientation

70. TIPS

71. READABLE COVER
● Make cover readable at first glance.
● Your cover assets should all be blocky.
● Not all environment contexts will lend themselves to this.

72. TIME SPENT THINKING, NOT WAITING
Don't make the player wait.
Your two main challenges:
● Fast execution of orders
● Short enemy turns
Solutions:
● Make all actions as fast as possible
● Simultaneous orders (Xcom)
● Fast forward (MYZ)
● Fewer units (smaller scale, or relying on reinforcements)

73. DON'T OVERDO HALF COVER
If there are walls nearby, treat half-cover as decor.

74. ATTACK AFTER MOVE SLOWS DOWN THE GAME
● Moving after attack enables hit and run
● Hit and run is best countered by overwatch
● Both hit and run and overwatch are defensive plays

75. GET YOUR SCALE RIGHT: FIT IT INTO THE SCREEN
● Make gun ranges as big as how much level you see on the screen
● Fit arenas/chokepoints on the screen

76. THE IMPORTANCE OF LINE-OF-SIGHT BREAK
● Triple walls = safe places
● You need safe places to give room for your
healing, support abilities
● They allow you to organize the space -
players tend to conquer the level from one
safe area to another
3 full covers -
the only truly safe spot

77. TURN-BASED TACTICAL = RISK MANAGEMENT
● Random chance doesn’t mean that ANYTHING can happen
● Make risk manageable
● It’s ok for a flimsy plan to fail (20% can always miss)
● It’s not ok for a great plan to fail miserably (90% should never miss)

78. DO YOU REALLY NEED ELEVATION?
● No
● You need visual verticality instead

79. ABILITIES ARE KING
● Don’t cut corners or save resources on abilities
● One good ability can make the whole game click

80. End.