RPG Battle System Case Study — Arctides Studios

A few years ago, I wrote up plans for a turn-based RPG video game battle system. While I came up with one very basic visual concept, I didn’t go far beyond it at the time.

Over the course of the pandemic, I began exploring the concept a bit further by starting from scratch on the visual assets involved. This not only involved aspects of the layout but pixel art assets as well. To give myself an existing universe to work with, I chose to use the Lola the Buhund book series’ story and characters as an example set-up of this system.

Outdated HUD design from Years Prior

Turn-based RPGs – in the style of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and similar titles – are considered outdated by many of gamers. Many in my personal circle have told me they find playing such games tiring and repetitive. A specific gamer, who enjoyed such games when they were younger, even disclosed to me that they found replaying a Final Fantasy game from the 90s as an adult exhausting. Common complaints include the gameplay also being slow.

The aim then becomes to create a battle system that can counter these issues. It must be challenging, and engaging, with the potential for fast-paced gameplay that drives players to keep going.

The audience would be gamers who enjoy (or once enjoyed) turn-based RPGs; gamers over age 36. In some instances, there may be gamers outside that age demographic who enjoy this exact genre but they’re a lot less common.

Typical constraints apply, as this is a one-person project. However, a big one looms on the horizon: modern gamers are very discerning, critical, meticulous, and often unforgiving.

Working from the original notes and rough mockup, I went about making some rough sketches of aspects of the HUD and UI to flesh out a base concept. I also went about making rough sketches for the sprites (individual pixel artwork of player characters and example enemies)

Concept Sketch of Skill Tome

Concept Sketch of Action Deck

I also went about making rough sketches in Clip Studio Paint Pro for the sprites (individual pixel artwork of player characters and example enemies), as well as an incomplete concept painting for the background.

Line up of player character concept sketches

Concept sketch of example boss, Mikaboshi Ascent

Incomplete Concept Painting of the Forbidden Plains of Cascadia

From the sketches, I created player character sprites as well as the example boss sprite in Pixaki 4. I also used the concept painting as a reference to create the stage background in Pixaki as well.

All player character sprites lined up.

Mikaboshi Ascent final sprite

Final Pixel Art of the Forbidden Plains

From there, I assembled these materials in Adobe XD and began creating mockups based on my UI concept sketches.

Menu Screen – Main

The menu screen of a turn-based RPG tends to be a big part of the experience, as players are often having to use it in between battles. It gives the player basic options and also displays the active player party as well as reserve characters.

Most of the options are self-explanatory; “Items” refers to the player’s inventory, “Equipment” refers to weapons and/or armor the party has equipped, “Party” allows the player to rearrange the party.

The “Skill Tome” and “Action Decks” sections are also integral to what actions characters can perform in battle.

This system utilizes a basic turn-based mechanic typical of older RPGs. The player party’s actions are decided at the beginning of a turn (“Strategize” Phase). After the actions are entered, the actions commerce in order based on the speed of the party and the opponents (“ENGAGE” Phase).

The current turn in battle is to be displayed in a section of the HUD, indicated as the current “Cycle” of battle. While players are not penalized based on the number of cycles it takes to win a battle, ending a battle successfully in a lower number of cycles will result in rewards to the player’s party – such as increased item and money drops, ExP and WsP bonuses, or full recovery of the party.

Each action has a cost of ActP (action points), which are defined in the character stats section – player characters can select a combination of commands that use up how many their ActP stats dictate per turn. If the player wishes to not use up all of a character’s ActP while deciding their actions, they may move forward after selecting at least one action by hitting the forward command (R Bumper on a standard controller). Hitting the forward command without selecting an action will default a character to defending for that cycle of battle. A back command (L Bumper) also allows players to cancel or backtrack on the commands entered.

The dial HUD overlay corresponds to most modern game controllers using 4 buttons. The main levels of commands are as follows: Button (X) – Attack – Basic Attack Button (Y) – Hand 1 – Access character’s first action deck hand. Button (B) – Hand 2 – Access character’s second action deck hand. Button (A) – Items – Access consumable items a character has equipped.

Battle Screen - Strategize 1

Battle Screen - Strategize 2

Menu Screen – Equipment

Menu Screen – Action Deck

Menu Screen – Skill Tome

The Equipment Menu is pretty straightforward; manage the weapons, armor, accessories, and items. Characters may equip battle-ready items to slots similar to a command deck, allowing up to four items. Auto-reload can be turned on through the item equip menu to have items restock after a battle.

You can switch between characters within this menu using the left and right bumper buttons. The respective character’s stats are displayed to the right of the equipment and held items windows. When changing equipment, + or – numbers should pop up next to stats if the change in weapons, armor, or accessories increase or decrease them.

The Action Deck Menu is where players can assign Actions to characters to be used in battle. Hand 1 and Hand 2 are Actions used actively in battle, such as special attacks, spells, or defensive/offensive buffs. The Up Sleeve section is for passive skills that aren’t directly activated by the player; for example the ability “Healer’s Bracer” would have a 50% chance to give a one turn boost to defense for a character when a healing ability is used on them.

Action Decks are intended to give players the chance to customize a character’s capabilities in battle, as well as to encourage them to quickly enter commands before proceeding into combat.

Some of the more powerful Active Actions/Skills would probably need cooldown periods to prevent players from overusing them.

The Skill Tome Menu allows characters to learn new abilities. New skills are unlocked as players proceed through the story and characters meet certain prerequisites. A secondary type of experience point, called wisdom points (WsP), have to be expended to gain new abilities once prerequisites are met.

WsP is gained in small amounts from battle along with ExP. Characters gain bonus amounts of WsP when leveling up.

The Tome indicates the type of Action/Skill being unlocked, as well as its WsP cost, prerequisites, and a description of what it does. Buhund Arcanum, as an example shown in the mockup, is a more advanced attack intended to be learned later in the game. The 9 ActP cost to use it when the maximum per character is 12 is intended to keep players from spamming it.

After the actions are entered, the actions commerce in order based on the speed of the party and the opponents (“ENGAGE” Phase).

The current turn in battle is to be displayed in a section of the HUD, indicated as the current “Cycle” of battle. While players are not penalized based on the number of cycles it takes to win a battle, ending a battle successfully in a lower number of cycles will result in rewards to the player’s party – such as increased item and money drops, ExP and WsP bonuses, or possible full recovery of the party.

Players should be motivated by this to strategize to end battles as quickly and skillfully as possible.

Battle Screen - Engage

To be seen as this concept develops further.