The idea that started it all was when I was watching the combat in the PS1 game, Xenogears. It felt visceral, like a fighting game, but I was mindful of the fact that it's a turn-based RPG.
As a kid, I really wanted to like fighting games, but I didn’t have any friends who could teach me. I understood there was a lot of tactics involved, and that that was the fun thing about it. But I could hardly pull a dragon punch on an arcade stick, so much of it was lost on me.
Could you perhaps have something as intense as fighting games but have it as cerebral as a tactics game? What the hell am I even thinking? Spoiler: Tactics Ensemble probably won't be as intense as Daigo's fight.
Over the years, I’ve played many games: XCOM: UFO Defense, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fallout 2, Vagrant Story, Neverwinter Nights, Valkyrie Profile, Dragon Age: Origins, Disgaea, Valkyria Chronicles, Resonance of Fate, Dark Souls, and lately, Skullgirls. I’ve always thought about that game idea every now and then. Since then every one of those games helped and continue to help inspire me for Tactics Ensemble.
With IGDA Manila's 1 Year Game Competition, I thought this was the chance to "kick this project into overdrive". So while I started the project in January of 2012, it was only in June, the start of the competition, that I started to make more frequent updates. Nothing gets you less lazy like when you're answerable to a lot of bigwigs.
I've been detailing progress on the game from my temporary blog, but as I'm not getting any feedback, I was wondering if I could get some useful feedback somewhere, hence, this Indie DB game page, as a test.
So, here's a video of how the game looks like so far. I'll try explaining what goes on there in the coming posts.
