Hi, i’m a noobie programmer whos primarily an artist working on a comic among other things. Im trying to develop a vertical slice for a game i’ve wanted to developfor a while. It’s a tactics game like Disgaea or X-com. I’ve heard tactics games are hard to do in Godot and i’m not delusional enough to think i could finish it on my own so im trying to make this slice so i have something to show along with my artwork, writing and core game mechanics to (hopefully) impress a rag tag team of programmers (or a plublisher idk) so i can maybe start something.
Are there any good like resources for tactical games? I’ve tried that Gdquest thing and i got as far as i could with all the outdated Godot 3 crap and eventually realized this was a waste of time. I’ve looked at youtube tutorials a but i dont think they’re concise enough i might just be dumb or somethin’ idk.
I would appreciate a little direction, i’ve still got a lot of concept art to do but i wanna make some sort of progresd on this. If only it was an rpgmaker game instead…
Tatics games have a ton of open ended questions, do you have a grid? if so what shape? How are turns decided? What actions can the player take? How many units does the player control, and how do they control them? Are there AI opponents?
That’s probably why you don’t see many tutorial on such genres. Platformers are more straight forward in concept, and implementation. run and jump, a basic enemy that moves side to side.
If it’s your first game then it’s probably a bad starting point, but you can build out the smaller systems first. Control a single character by mouse, try adding a grid, then keep track of turns. See how much you need to rewrite and rethink to add another character, then an enemy.
This is more of an opinion: finish your concept art, add some specific art for illustrating systems you would like to add and then work with that.
If you end goal is not do do any programming yourself but build up a team and take care of financing the project, focus on exactly that with the skills you have already. And hone your skills in marketing, networking and team management
Thats exactly how i plan to go about it, one little piece at a time but the main thing is just the combat system. If you are curious the grid is hexagonal.
And i know it’s a bad idea to start with it but again im not trying to bang out a full game on my own just the combat to showcase since its the main selling point aside from the aesthetic.
Thank you for your swift answer, it means a lot :^) i will do my best.
Yup that’s the end goal and i am 100% planning to do that. BUUUUUT, i thought it would be a good idea to at least have some playable part of the game to show, it might not be necessary but it’s worth a shot.
Regarding finding a team, is there any super secret method that i’m missing for this step? I have no idea how people find their programmer in arms or whatever. Seems like you gotta gamble on freelancers or try to form a connection with someone irl. I really don’t like the freelancer thing because i believe passion makes a good game legendary so if your team doesn’t really care about the project why are they even there.
I think that for these niche things, it is often most helpful to mess around a bit yourself. As gertkeno said, when you try to make something jump or hover or whatever, it is often done more or less the same. When you try something very specific and look for examples on how others have done the same, either you wont find anything or you will find something that is tightly knit to the rest of their game.
It can be very difficult to start with these niche things though. If i were you, i would start slow and try to keep it very simple. Try to learn a bit as you go and try to create one part at a time. Later on, you can combine them. But it makes no sense (to me) to have 11 things 30% completed if instead you can have 3 things 100% completed. Especially as if you do it right, you can reuse scenes in multiple games. Even if you don’t want to learn how to code, it can be useful to know at least some basics.
I think that the problem with finding a programmer is that most hobby game programmers have learned to code because they want to make their own game. Perhaps you could find someone that will help you if they are doing something similar themselves. For example, there was a guy here that asked if someone could help him make an equipment system. Since i wanted to make one myself anyway i thought why not make it a bit more pluginesque so he can use it too. But if i had not needed one myself i would not have spent so much time on making one. So one solution could be to check if any other people are making strategy games and offer them some help with art or whatever in return for them modifying their scripts to suit your needs better.
