Good evening my fellow Kindred,

It’s the 13th of November - our dev-diary day. If you are our long-time follower we wish to thank you for your interest in the project. If you are new - welcome! We are glad to have you.

This month's diary will be probably very interesting for those curious about our combat system. It’s one of the fundamental and most basic systems that just has to be present in a full-fledged RPG game.

As you already know we decided to go with a top-down camera that can follow the player or just fly around the location. Similar to those you can find in the classics from Interplay games (Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Planescape: Torment, and many more) and some modern games (X-Com or Shadowrun series). What you don’t know is what exactly combat will look like.

As with many top-downs, our combat will be turn-based. What it means is that every participant who is present from the start of a given encounter will be placed in the action queue and have one action during one turn of combat. There will be basic actions like changing position, attacking, and using abilities. Every action will have its cost so you have to plan how to position your party and how to attack your enemies.

Disclaimer: The video is the 1st iteration of combat. The ending result in visuals and UI may vary!

Move action - during your turn you’ll be able to change your position. Character position will be based on a simple grid that will handle where a given combat participant stands. You can move more slowly to reserve another action in your turn or use all actions to sprint further than normal running would take you. Your range of movement will be shown on the grid with blue for run, purple for sprint, and finally, red for cells that will be outside of your range.

Yes, that explains basic movement. But it’s just one of the pieces of combat. How about… defense? Yes. It’s one of the more important components of combat. Luckily for you - we have that covered… quite literally. Do you see all that clutter around a given location and you are sure someone will attack you here? Well then - lucky you. You’ll be able to hide behind stuff and gain cover.  The game will recognize whether you hid behind full cover or half cover.

Of course, in line with defense goes the offense. Otherwise, the game would be a stupid minigame of hide and seek with no possibility to neutralize opponents. Every character will have its abilities on hand ready to use in combat as well as weapons. You’ll be able to snipe down those pesky gangsters from a safe distance before they start to be a danger for you and your party. Or you can go into full Hulk mode and deal with the problem up close and personally. It all depends on your style. And let’s not forget - style is quite important in Las Vegas after all.

Okay, if it was about offense - what types of combat will be available? Well, as you see in TTRPG 4 skills handle the various combat configurations. Brawl is for fighting without any weapon (or with natural weapons like claws and fangs). Up close, brutal, and personal. Melee is for fighting with any weapon you can imagine. Stakes, knives, baseball bats… swords… axes… even katanas. It is different though for lightweight weapons like the basic knife and heavy, two-handed ones like the crowbar. The difference lies in the basic attribute melee is summarized with. Decapitate or maybe beat to a pulp? Everything is possible with a wide range of melee weapons. Okay, but what about ranged combat? You know… bows? Crossbows? And of course, all those guns you can acquire lying around. You probably guessed it - it’s firearms. You can burst your way leaving bodies leaking like a sieve or snipe around everyone. One. Bullet. At. The. Time. The only difference lies with attributes. There is also a wide range of weapons that can be thrown around like grenades - or even simpler ones like stones. It’s all about eye-to-hand coordination, like athletics.

Okay, but how about the game? It can’t be straight up the same as in the TTRPG. Right? The answer is... IT CAN! Our game will recognize that, for example, you wield a kitchen knife and will calculate everything for you basing it on correct attributes and skills. You don’t have to worry if you added the correct attribute to your skill and do all that math to throw your dice. You can just sit comfortably and watch the carnage on your screen. But be wary! Every gun has a limited magazine and you’ll have to reload it at some point. As for hand-to-hand combat - you first need to get into range to use them. Range applies to guns too - they are efficient only at a given range and their precision drops the further the target is. It's something that TTRPG handles with roll difficulty.

There is also a question of skills and disciplines. While they are not present in the preview they will be available in the full game. Remember we said that we’ll incorporate specialties into skills that will compensate for Disciplines? We still remember about it and later on, we’ll add them to the combat. Also, Disciplines will be quite fun to use. Especially because we don’t hold tightly to what core rules have to offer.

We also have different plans for the future if time and skill allow us and we are considering them to be added later on. Like environmental hazards, armor mechanics, frenzy (not only fury but also hunger and Rotshreck), types of damage, and many more to add even more variety to combat mechanics to make them even more interesting.

Stay tuned for the next release - since combat was one of the most important steps to go forward with development! Got any thoughts? Or maybe feedback? Feel free to let us know on our Discord server, Facebook, Twitter, or Patreon site, and see you next month.