10-17-2026, 03:23 AM
I wonder how many folks in this space have a "I made/witnessed a bad game when I was a kid" beat in their origin story. I certainly do (mine was submarine-based minis combat and it was terrible).
My gut says that this wants to be a series of little XP treadmills for your dudes plus an overall power treadmill for your squad. If combat is brisk and you always have some choices about how your XP treadmills are advancing (e.g. who gets last hits, which dude is battling the most, which dude(s) battled at all, etc.) you could drop that in a hex map with diegetic navigation (which evolves as you unlock different tools, of course) and some zone-based encounter tables to get something that's pretty close to 1) some established-fun patterns of play, and 2) the Pokemon fantasy.
Of course, the rub would be finely balancing all these XP treadmills for maximum fun, either by making it perfectly smooth (à la data-driven mobile game) or spiky enough to have texture.
Am I just describing Into the Oddish?
My gut says that this wants to be a series of little XP treadmills for your dudes plus an overall power treadmill for your squad. If combat is brisk and you always have some choices about how your XP treadmills are advancing (e.g. who gets last hits, which dude is battling the most, which dude(s) battled at all, etc.) you could drop that in a hex map with diegetic navigation (which evolves as you unlock different tools, of course) and some zone-based encounter tables to get something that's pretty close to 1) some established-fun patterns of play, and 2) the Pokemon fantasy.
Of course, the rub would be finely balancing all these XP treadmills for maximum fun, either by making it perfectly smooth (à la data-driven mobile game) or spiky enough to have texture.
Am I just describing Into the Oddish?