The Big Idea

Much has changed since the last update, and I want to talk through all of it to some degree — mainly so it’s out in the open and I can move on to new pastures. Something this post was going to cover in its entirety, that was, until I hit the two-thousand-word mark with only one talking point. So with respect for you, the reader's time, and not losing myself to the show, what follows is that first talking point. In the weeks to come, the others, more focused on the project itself rather than its inspirations, will also go up once I’ve written them. I am glad, however, that this one is the one that got out first, because I’ve gone quite a bit without reiterating the design thesis of Goon Game. Something that bears repeating, mainly for the sake of consistency. That way, we’re all on the same page for when I start going down that future change log and making reference to a big idea that’s clear in my head but perhaps not yours. 

The big idea was the notion that I wanted to make a strategy game where numbers are minimized in the overall strategy. By that, I mean I want players to be thinking about things like positioning, unit abilities, board state, and counterplay, not just overall damage per round. A headspace, mind you, not entirely divorced from numerical stats. Strategy games are, at the end of the day, numbers games. But, in terms of gameplay, the context in which those numbers and calculations are housed is what separates XCOM from Fire Emblem. Both are fine games in their own right, yet it's the former rather than the latter that I’m trying to emulate. Because while my desired headspace is a part of the core strategy of Fire Emblem, it is hampered by the rigidity of its systems; ergo, you’ll never be able to get Lyn to kill an armor knight by herself. While this rigidity is somewhat by design, as it gets the player thinking about how problems are best solved with the units they have available, it, in my opinion, creates a limited space for player expression.

Sure, you can build your army any way you want, especially in newer installments. You could make Robin a crit-fishing Sword Master, a mobile and versatile Paladin, or leave him as his default Tactician class and lean more into his innate spell-sword play style. But regardless of class and load-out, the end goal is the same: remove enemy pieces from play. With the exception of the Thief class in earlier games and healers, this is the role for every class: weigh in, knock a target down, don’t die on the clap back; and due to the numbers each class bases interactions around, their will be under preforming units in every army that will grow more and more unless the stronger your useful units become.

Hector's Lv1 Stats

Lyn's Lv1 Stats

Eliwood's Lv1 Stats

Hector, for instance, one of the three lord units in FE7, is nearly unstoppable; he’s got enough attack, defense, HP, and speed to go toe-to-toe with just about every enemy type in the game, as well as solo just about every boss. Bellow him, in terms of raw numbers, is Lyn, who isn’t as bulky or strong as Hector, but is fast enough to fish for critical hits against unarmored infantry properly. Then there's Eliwood, who is useless past the third chapter you get him. He’s not as bulky or strong as Hector, nor as fast as Lyn, meaning any possible role he could fill has been taken because he can’t interact with the main gameplay loop effectively, limiting options for the player.

This is also true in XCOM, as not every class is viable at every range or engagement. However, each class can be built in a way that still offers utility to other units by providing support. The Heavy class, for instance, can either upgrade their rocket launcher or mini-gun. The former is the more meta option, as it is better for taking down larder targets and removing cover for Snipers and Assault units to get line of sight — but the ladder can also be useful, if built correctly, as it prevents enemy units from using the Overwatch ability: a key strategy piece for both players that allows a unit to shoot on their opponent’s turn if they move into their line of sight. So even if the Heavy couldn’t do as much damage as the Sniper or Assault unit in their squad, they still have a role to play in facilitating the success of the mission, either by removing options for the opponent, or by destroying cover or preventing Overwatch.     

Heavy Class, Sergeant Perk Options.

Now, to Intelligent System’s credit, this is a problem they’ve been playing with for a while; however, to me, it will always be there because of how vital numerical interactions are in these games. But I can’t throw too much shade as, A) it’s working for them, and B) I keep buying these games, so clearly it’s not detrimental to my enjoyment. With that said, I do wish they were more expressive. I wish there were a strategy game that had the turn-based tactic gameplay of a Fire Emblem or XCOM, but with a greater amount of mechanical expression like in Magic: The Gathering.

Approach of the Second Sun. By Noah Bradley

I know Magic and Fire Emblem/XCOM are in two different ballparks. But it's the mentality in design that I’m more interested in bringing over, rather than trying to dump one set of rules into the other and hope they play nice together. For me, Magic is a far more expressive form of play because the elements of play allow for indirect or low-power means of victory. I once lost a game of Commander to a guy who spent the whole game making a pillow fort around himself with enchantments like Ghost Prison and building up a wall of low power and toughness tokens to act as meat shields so he could power-draw into Approach of the Second Sun: a card that puts itself back into your deck when cast so when you cast it again, you win the game.

Krenko, Mob Boss. By Karl Kopioski

Even without auto win cards like Approach, Felidar Sovereign, or Helkite Tyrant, you can still win with, on paper, ‘weaker’ creatures or cards. One of my favorite decks is my Kranko, Mob Boss deck, which is focused on creating 1/1 goblins. Now, 1/1 is one of the weakest creatures you can have active on the field. But if you're making 25 of them a turn, they become a problem. And I don’t even need to buff them up to win either, or even attack with them, because I have outlets like Burn at the Stake, Mob Justice, and Desperate Assault that just deal damage to a player equal to the number of creatures I control. I also have a tertiary win con centered around Alter of the Brood, which forces my opponents to discard a card from their deck whenever a creature I control enters the field. Yes, that includes 1/1 goblins. Yes, it's per goblin. No, I have not decked someone out with this — yet. What I am trying to get at is that this is the kind of mechanical expression I want to see in my own game, and you can only get to this mindset by designing game elements that are meant to be altered, like in XCOM. Alterations that aren’t just flat number bumps.

Going back to Fire Emblem, as an example, we see this come out in some of the experiments to make the game more expressive. Starting with the Rally skills, skills that would buff nearby allies, in Awakening. But by the time a unit would gain access to a Rally skill, most other allies would be either so powerful they wouldn’t need a buff, or so weak that a +5 wasn’t going to help. It was also just a flat number buff, so it wasn’t an exciting skill to begin with.  

Fire Emblem: Awakening, Rally Skill.

Then there was the Exam system in Three Houses that let you turn any unit into any class. But this didn’t alter their growths (the percentages that determine what stats get increased when a unit levels up), so if you specked, say, Caspar, into a Mage, you’d be getting fewer levels to his Magic stat and fewer known spells than if you turned Dorothea into a Mage.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Exam Classes

But in Engage, they had the Emblem system alongside the inherited skill system, meaning that you could mix and match specific skills and abilities from the ten Emblem rings you get in the game to make more unique builds for units. Builds that are still focused on removing pieces from the board, but at the very least, there is a greater variety in how you go about that.

Durthon, Ike, and Panette - Fire Emblem Engage. By NicoTS

For instance, one of my favorite builds is with Panette, because you can take advantage of her passive that gives her +10% critical hit chance when damaged, combine it with skill like Wrath (turns lost HP into critical hit chance) and Vantage (makes it that if the unit is at half HP they always attack first); then give her an infused Killer Axe and/or Tomahawk and you’ve created a walking nuke that on turn two onward will constantly be attacking first and always get a critical, so she’ll always be doing x3 damage: averaging at least eighty damage.

See, with the Panette example, the alterations to how the player can change a unit's stat line feed into creating a more expressive form of strategy. While yes, there is no Approach of the Second Sun combo or Goblin bomb option, the means of going about the goals of the game have changed in accordance with how the player has chosen to express themselves. While Panette is pretty much unstoppable once she gets rolling, she’s still hovering around 20-35 HP, out of 60; and with her low defenses, she’s a glass cannon vulnerable to anything outside of the 1-2 range of her Tomahawk. So enemy snipers with long bows or mages with Boltang are something you have to play around when using this build. Meaning you need to build counters for these loadouts. For me, it was Warrior Goldmarry with Hector’s Bond Band to hunt down snipers while Paladin Alfred with Sigurd’s Emblem changed up into the back line to mow down the mages with Momentum. Keeping those units topped off with healers so Penette can continue to bash skulls in peace.

Fire Emblem: Engage, Yunaka Mid Critical Animation

Now, this system isn’t perfect, and there is a definite lean towards Emblems / Bond Bands that have direct combat utility. Corrin’s Emblem, for instance, lets the unit with the Emblem create a board hazard dependent on their class: fire that deals damage, ice that impairs movement, rocks that prevent being disarmed, etc. But the meta with Corrin is to slap her on Yunaka so she can make a fog cloud that raises AVO so Yunaka is A) untouchable, and B) always getting the critical hit bonus from her ambush passive; making the wider board changing effects moot. A shame because having a unit dedicated to throwing down beneficial board effects would be a cool support build. But it is let down by a similar lack of impact to Rally before it. Because on paper, these are all useful to guarantee kills, but in practice, they're not as effective as smoke bomb Yunaka. The fire effect only deals chip damage, ice has too short a range, and while the rocks are useful, by the point you get them, nearly all your front liners will have two different weapon types, making it more efficient to swap to the one that won’t get them disarmed.

Even if these area hazards were buffed, you’d still be missing out on overall DPS because one unit can’t output as much damage as the others. Which may sound like an odd critique for a support build, but the best support classes in Engage double as DPS: High Priest gets access to Magic Tomes that scale off the same stat as Healing Staves, and Martial Masters can use top-tier Arts weapons which scale off the average between Strength and Magic. So if your supports aren’t healing, they're attacking like everyone else.

This is what hinders player expression in Engage (and in Fire Emblem as a whole). If everyone can be a DPS and the game wants everyone to be capable of being a DPS, then the balance shifts away from Support and Tank roles, making everything more homogeneous. If I want a more expressive game, then that balance between DPS, Tank, and Support should be more defined. DPS does the damage, Tank keeps DPS alive, Support helps the other two do their jobs. In essence, the Holy Trinity of class design should be dead center while other modular game elements help players shift that balance to suit their individual needs and expressions. That way, the mindset being conveyed to the player isn’t “you need to be doing damage” but “you need to be playing into your strengths,” which can be combat, area denial, de-buffs, board effects, hand hate, etc. That is the big picture goal of Goon Game, and now that the easy part is out of the way, I can focus on making good on all those big ideas. Talk more about that next time.