Hello, World

Well, here we are. I've been sitting on this idea for a while, but the PIGSquad game jam coaxed me into making it public in some form. Meddlers is a tactics game focusing on a trio of characters: Sol, Gambit, and Dust. Brought together by chance, they form a mercenary company, uncover a sinister plot, and eventually grow to become heroes.

The game is largely inspired by my favorite tactics games. The final design will take heavy inspiration from Fire Emblem, along with a focus on movement and skills that I enjoyed from Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Another game that inspired me was Under Night, specifically for its use of the GRD meter

For those who haven't played the fighting game, in addition to your normal super meters, there's this funny little meter called the GRD. You and your opponent start at opposite ends of it, and can gain/lose it depending on your actions ingame. You gain it for things like moving forward and successfully hitting the opponent. You lose it for things like running away and being hit. Every so often, the player with more GRD than the opponent will be granted a damage buff, and the powerful Chain Shift technique. Chain Shift can swing the tide of a match, and converts your entire GRD meter into super meter, but you also lose your damage buff. Even from this gross oversimplification, it's clear how the GRD encourages players to be aggressive and take risks by its mere existence: Chain Shift is a powerful tool, and to use it you need to take the kinds of risks that the GRD encourages.

This was my inspiration for spirit magic. The basic concept is that in this world, morale is a tangible magic force called spirit. It rises and falls with the mood of a given faction, depending on how the battle seems to be going for them. Spirit Mages are special types of mages that are able to channel the spirit of their team into powerful effects. The reason I put this into a tactics game is because I disliked levels where the optimal strategy was to move everyone forward slowly as a giant death ball and lure in as few units as you could at a time.  My goal is to create a tactics game where the optimal move often requires a calculated risk or bold movement. Spirit and other mechanics will be used to encourage calculated aggressive play

Standard gameplay will consist of hiring more members into your mercenary group, developing your units into skilled fighters, and accepting missions in various corners of the world. New members can apply to join you as your reputation grows, or you can meet them over the course of missions. Training your units is about more than raising stats, every unit can learn a wide number of skills, and it's up to you to decide which ones to learn and equip. Skills in the full game can be passive or  As a mercenary company, you often have more than 1 mission offered at a time, with each of the 3 founders wanting to do a different mission. In these cases, the order in which you prioritize missions will have an impact on the rewards and difficulty of the encounter: ones you prioritize will offer greater rewards, while complications often arise for ones you put off.