Mechanics

Philosophy of Alder’s Blood

Can an idea for a game be a frustration’s child? Absolutely, lol.

Hi everybody, my name is Mike and I?ll talk about the whole idea behind Alder?s Blood project.
 
I really like strategy and tactical games. I might not be the best player ever in these, but I always loved the genre. We have seen some really cool tactical games lately, but all of them featured one crucial gameplay element that was usually a game breaker to me?RNG. I think we all know the frustration of missing that ?90% chance to hit? shot, right? So we decided that if we ever do a tactical game it won?t feature the RNG system for attacks and other skills. And so does Alder?s Blood.

I love X-com games, but 65% chances for a hit in front of characters face is a joke 😉 Source: 9gag

 
So how does it work, right? Won?t it be too repetitive on a long run? We believe it won?t. Tactical games are all about careful planning every move, having plan B and C if something goes wrong. But classic RNG can literally destroy your backup plans up to Z?unless you already run out of guys that can do something.
In Alder?s Blood if a gun deals 3DMG and the enemy is in range, the enemy WILL receive 3DMG, period. No more ?suprises? and ?deal with it? philosophy.

We back this up with other systems that I will describe in short below:
 
Stamina system:
Instead of using standard ?X Action Points per character?, we used something closer to mana system. How it works:
  • Every character has a maximum value of stamina,
  • Every attack or skill costs stamina points,
  • You can use as many actions as long as you have stamina left,
  • Every character/enemy replenish x stamina at the start of it?s turn.
So it is a reasource management system. Should I go all in, use my stamina for lots of attacks, but stay vulnerable to enemy attacks? Or maybe should I keep some stamina so I can use it later on more powerful attacks?
 
Senses:
Modern games of the genre usually are focused on the Line of Sight. Do I see an enemy? Can I shoot him? We wanted to add different senses into the mix, so the positioning of our hunters will be more important.
Most of the skills emit sound. When an enemy hears it, it will follow the source of the noise. There will also be terrain elements that can make noise when atcivated, or just stepped on.

These purple diagrams shows the ammount of hunter’s smell on a hex. In the final game they will look much more interesting 😉

Smell, my favourite element of Alder?s Blood. We wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the hunt and as you know, smell and wind are very important while hunting. So yeah, the enemies can smell you. Our characters leave trails of their scent on the map that can spread around. So the longer you stay in one place, the stronger your scent will be in that area. But there is also wind. The wind can move the trails of scent around, transporting it right up to our enemies noses. And when they smell you, they will start to track you.
 
The Darkness is the only big mechanic that will use some form of an RNG system. We will talk about it more in a different post, but just to tease you: The situation on the map won?t be static, things can change drastically while you play and they will change according to your actions.
 
Our goal with Alder?s Blood is to create a game where you make decisions that will matter based on information you are provided with. No grind, no RNG in the most basic mechanics to fill the shallowness of the gameplay. We really think we can achieve this goal and bring you a fun game to play, a game that we would like to play ourselves.