HiskiH's Blog

Generic Fantasy is Well Designed for Conflict

2026-08-02T11:25:42+03:00

As I've been writing a non-Tolkien fantasy setting for Runecycle I've begun to understand why generic fantasy settings are the way they are. I have a slightly odd way of writing the setting, as I think about the things in the setting as tools to facilitate adventure. Generic fantasy settings are perfectly built for conflict. Here's what I mean:

Dangerous animals and monsters can be anything and found anywhere.
There are good gods directing good players to do good things and evil gods just making problems because that is what they do.
There are all kinds of magical beings that can cause all manner of magical problems from demons to fairies to angels.
Most people are at least a little desperate, creating great grounds for both heroes and villains.
There are intelligent species of many kinds, and some are hostile to humans, creating easy conditions for conflict.
There are other dimensions, which just by existing create problems.

And that's just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head.

As I've been working on my own world I've struggled to actually come up with adventure ideas. I think this is why. Because I have a fantasy game where you do fantasy things it's harder to make things work when there aren't all of these inherent conflicts built into the setting. When I made the choice to not have intelligent nonhuman species in the game I shut out one easy conflict (emphasis on easy). When I chose to leave the gods out for the most part I lost another driving force of evil (I'm bringing that back a bit). I've not written any other dimensions yet, which locks me out of otherworldly evils.

It's not that you need these things to write a good setting. But it has been interesting to basically stumble into the fantasy tropes again by trying to design a setting for adventure. Quite many times I've thought to myself "man, this would be so much easier if I had goblins."

Feeling & Thought: Social Checks and the Strawman Introvert

2026-07-31T11:41:53+03:00

Aight, time to poke this hornet's nest. This is not a post discussing whether social checks and charisma scores are good or bad, both having them and not having them serve different design purposes. This post is about a specific argument used in these conversations, what I dub the Strawman Introvert.

This is a Feeling & Thought. A series where I write about my experiences in the TTRPG hobby. Just like feelings, these thoughts aren't science, they aren't truth, and they definitely aren't reliable. Explore them with a playful attitude and don't take them too seriously. I certainly don't.

So you have a conversation about social checks. Some like em', some hate em'. Eventually someone will say "You can't swing a sword in real life, so why should you need to be charismatic in real life?" and the other side will reply "Because these are social games, where you can use your words." and then someone says "But what about the poor little introvert who has low charisma??? :("

This is not a good argument. Stop using it. (There are other good arguments, use them.)

Introverts do not lack social skills. They are not "low charisma". They might prefer to be alone more than your average person but introversion does not automatically equate to poor social skills (though introverted people may develop them less, or their introversion is correlated to the lack thereof). Further, these are people who willingly enter a ROLEPLAYING GAME, a game that is almost exclusively an hours long complex social situation. Using something else in place of the strawman introvert could be better, you could argue accesibility to people with social anxiety or autistic traits and I'd be more willing to agree with you.

The other argument I don't like is that roleplaying requires charisma. That a social encounter must be roleplayed in character. And that the only two possible ways to resolve a roleplaying scene is to fully act it out or to sidestep it entirely by rolling dice.

What if you treated a roleplaying scene like literally any other scene in an rpg. Where the players can step out of the immediate situation and think about their options, and strategize together. Ask clarifying questions from the GM. And GM, let the party think. If someone has poor social skills this is the way for them to develop them. They can ask about the tone of the NPC, or their body language, or think about their words. Sure they might have trouble reading the room in real life but this is a fictional room and they have infinite time to read it. And they can do it with their fellow party members. This also gives the GM some grace because the GM also likely cannot act the NPC perfectly. 3rd person narration has been a tool in this hobby since it's inception. Use it.

That's it, really. For some reason we've decided social encounters cannot be played like environmental encounters, or even in tightly controlled form like combat encounters for that matter. They absolutely can, and you can slot in charisma checks or not, that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. But please stop treating social encouters like LARPs. Or do, and make them awesome, if that is what you and your players like.

Feeling & Thought: Fruitless Void

2026-07-29T19:41:09+03:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these.

There's this thing that keeps happening to me. I buy the pdf of a game because it is advertised or generally agreed upon by the rpg community as doing something well, only to end up disappointed with its supposed offerings. I'm calling that a fruitless void as a cheeky reference to the commonly used design concept in RPGs called Fruitful Void. Let us discuss.

This is a Feeling & Thought. A series where I write about my experiences in the TTRPG hobby. Just like feelings, these thoughts aren't science, they aren't truth, and they definitely aren't reliable. Explore them with a playful attitude and don't take them too seriously. I certainly don't.

Fruitful Voids in RPG design are essentially places where the author did not mechanize or write out some part of a game because that is the space they want the players to play in. Like the Alien RPG not including stealth rules because it wants players to feel the horror of sneaking around and avoiding the aliens. Being able to just roll to avoid the alien would hurt the tension. Good design.

What I want to complain about here is kind of the opposite: a game promising some kind of gameplay and just not delivering anything except the bare minimum. It's a void, yes, and it did not bear fruit. The biggest offenders to me are crafting systems and homebase management systems. Crafting systems that end up as "here's some ingredients and things to make from them, figure out the rest dear GM" and homebases that are just roll tables of random npcs and some random event rolls. These are more illustrative than specific examples but I hope you get the point.

I know, I know. A lot of value in RPGs comes from the author spelling out something for you so you don't have to invent it. I'm really not super angry about this topic, it's a minor annoyance at best. But I do still want to bring attention to it because I think it is an interesting issue: is a game providing value to you if the systems and content it provides are no better than content you could have made yourself? I for one buy a game hoping the time the author spent making it would contribute some novel system or idea that I would not have been able to come up with myself.

So what's the takeaway here? Man, I don't know. I can't fault a game for having simple mechanics or writing and I can't demand all games be mindblowingly novel. Mine certainly aren't. But maybe this frustration resonates with someone out there, that when I decide to purchase someone else's DIY in this DIY hobby it would at least want it to feel different to my own. Or maybe this is me realizing the RPG industry is just people making things to inspire other people to make things, and the art of the craft really isn't particularly complicated.

Hate to end on a bummer, so HEY GO MAKE COOL THINGS! Maybe invent a new use for this stupid joke of a design term I came up with. Maybe I am leaving you a fruitful void to work with... or is this post a fruitless one?

Mobile Dungeon Task Force - Stats, Maxes and Caps

2026-04-11T19:24:19+03:00

The latest version of MDTF playtest features a stat system that combines Into the Odd and Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG. Here's how it works:

You have three stats: Endurance (END), Reflex (REF) and Character (CHA). Each stat has a MAX value between 2 and 7.

On your character sheet each stat has a value, a MAX value and CAP value. Your MAX is the canonical value of the stat and doesn't affect play in any way. Your CAP value is the maximum value the stat can have DURING play. Your CAPs return to their MAX values when your rest.

So when you play, your stats might look like this:

END 4 / 7 (MAX 7)
REF 3 / 5 (MAX 5)
CHA 6 / 6 (MAX 6)

Your END acts as your health, so when you take damage you reduce your END score.

END 4 / 7 -> END 2 / 7

Your REF and CHA are resources you can use to do certain special actions.

REF 3 / 5 -> REF 2 / 5 (to make a special aimed shot with a firearm)

Here's where things get interesting. If you take more damage than you have remaining in your END stat you must reduce a CAP for the excess damage. Lets say you take 5 damage.

END 2 / 7 -> END 0 / 7

Now you have to reduce the CAP of either END, REF or CHA by the excess amount (here it would be 3 points). You choose CHA.

CHA 6 / 6 -> CHA 3 / 3

Your CAP was lowered, so your score goes down too. Because you didn't spend these points before they are now lost.

The Box Version

This post was prompted by a friend of mine coming up with a brilliant representation of this system. Imagine each of your stats as a box. The number of boxes represents the MAX of the stat.

END ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐
REF ☐☐☐☐☐
CHA ☐☐☐☐☐☐

During play your boxes might look like this after taking 3 damage and spending 2 REF points:

END ☐☐☐☐☑☑☑
REF ☐☐☐☑☑
CHA ☐☐☐☐☐☐

Now you take 8 damage. You fill in your END boxes, and cross off the remainder from any of the stats.

END ☑☑☑☑☑☑☒
REF ☐☐☐☒☒
CHA ☐☐☐☐☐☒

You've chosen to reduce your maximum healt by one and reduce your CHA by one but also used the already spent REF points without losing any remaining points. Now the combat is over and you heal your health back.

END ☐☐☐☐☐☐☒
REF ☐☐☐☒☒
CHA ☐☐☐☐☐☒

So when do you die? When your END pool is fully crossed off.

The benefit of this idea is that it forces you to use your points. Sure you can save your REF and CHA points for a bad day but if you ever take more damage than you can handle, and rest assured you certainly will, some of those saved points will be lost.

The game is not currently available anywhere but you can follow me on Bluesky or Itch to be the first to know when a playable version is out. Cheers!

All Hail the NWoHF

2026-03-27T14:37:58+02:00

Due to some recent developments I’m conceding the NWOF label for the NWoHF acronym. This post contains a short history on the whole thing as well as my thoughts on it now.

This all happened on the NSR Cauldron Discord. In late 2025 Brandon said something about “a new wave of heroic fantasy” which ordinal coined as NWoHF (the o used to be capitalized but shrunk down at some point). Me and Window Dump jumped in on the discussion and over time agreed upon the outlines of this phenomenon.

I believed the acronym was too complex (and I still do) so I wrote my own series of blog posts on the NWOF, New Wave of Fantasy (see original definition, additional discussion and the NWOF promise) mainly because I wanted to include Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG and Legend in the Mist - a rustic fantasy RPG under the label.

I’m finally throwing in the towel and conceding the Heroic H is important. I’ve since learned that both Vagabond and Legend in the Mist call their characters Heroes. All of my counter examples have vanished so I have to conclude that NWoHF is the superior label. Admittedly shrinking down the o helped. Can we still pronounce it as en-wof? The rest of this post is an updated combination of my previous posts trying to explain what the NWoHF is.

Defining the NWoHF (again)

NWOF games feel like 5e DnD narratively but not mechanically

NWoHF games are often:

fantasy games influenced by DnD 5e
made after or in response to the OGL fiasco
heroic and kitchen-sink fantasy
speaking to the 5e audience, sometimes unintentionally

The games sit somewhere between NSR games and 5e. Usually more complex than the OSR tradition but many are quite simplified from the full 5e package.

flowchart LR
    B/X --- OSR --- NSR --- NWoHF --- 5e

Some NWoHF games

Daggerheart
Nimble
DC20
Draw Steel
Grimwild
Cosmere RPG
Legend in the Mist
Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG

Here’s what I think you can expect when you play an NWoHF game:

Relatively simple rules and resolution mechanics yet often complex character building.
You play as a protagonistic hero with implied growth towards saving something important to you, oftentimes the world.
Fiction first rules with some amount of storytelling mechanics behind them.
The game caters to a specific style of play within the heroic fantasy genre with some games focusing on storytelling and others on crunchy combat.
Focus on characters, personal stories and exploring the world created by the GM. Sometimes the players also build parts of the world.
A mix of ideas from various traditions from OSR to PbtA.

NWoHF vs Heartbreaker

One can ask if NWoHF is just a new name for the fantasy heartbreaker. In a way yes, a game can be both an NWoHF game and a heartbreaker but they do still differ in my mind. A heartbreaker is a game that is trying to be Dungeons & Dragons whereas an NWoHF game is doing its own thing in the same genre of heroic fantasy. Heartbreakers are inspired by the D&D books but NWoHF games tend to be more inspired by the stories people tell with 5e on actual play shows and other media.

Remember that labels and definitions are tools for communication. They help us hone in on what parts we find valuable, interesting or worthwhile. I don’t consider NWoHF to be a sole definer of a game or a proper genre though if someone were to ask me to play an NWoHF game I think I would have a solid idea what to expect. Whether a particular game fits or doesn’t fit the label is ultimately not that important.

I Used to Dislike Tea

2026-03-04T20:31:37+02:00

Do you think tea tastes like water and grass? Do you find yourself completely indifferent to the concept of leaf-flavored water? That was me, and if that is you, let me tell you how I figured out tea over the past year.

I do not like green tea, it tastes like grass.

I tolerate black tea, it has a flavor...sort of... somewhere.

And those two basic boring bitches are most of the tea you get exposed to. If you like them I'm happy for you, and honestly a bit jealous of your ability to enjoy the most popular tea flavors.

For me everything changed when I bought a hand-crafted packet of various flavors of tea. And I don't mean various flavorings of black tea, I mean various types of tea, pure and unflavored.

Before you try to find your favorite seasoning from blueberries to lemongrass, you should try various types of tea because there are tons. And the base flavor of the various tea types is suuuper important. If you find one that you like you can further tweak it with additional flavorings.

So I've found two types of tea I like: pu-erh and oolong. Yes, of course they are more expensive than your basic black and green.

Pu-erh is fermented tea, kinda. It's strong and usually not recommended for first-timers. For me it was perfect, because finally tea had a proper taste beyond lightly flavored water. If you find basic teas kinda flavorless, consider picking up pu-erh. I specifically enjoy fruity pu-erh which has, you guessed it, fruits in it. Makes it a bit softer and, well, fruitier.

And my new find I'm still learning about, oolong, specifically four-seasons oolong. I tried it once and immediately went to get more. That particular oolong was incredible, it was mellow like green but did not taste like grass. It had almost a sweet aftertaste to it despite having nothing besides tea-leaves in it. A great find if you dislike bitter or grassy teas.

Finally, the market variety teas. Many swear on the more expensive loose-leaf teas sold in specialty shops. I can't really say if hand pouring on your loose-leaves is truly that much better but I have found much enjoyment in the process. Making a trip to a teashop to explore the various specialties is much more likely to find you a tea that you like than whatever they put in the mass-market teabags.

My friends that pushed me to properly explore the world of teas were correct. If you don't like tea, you just havent found the one for you. Or you prefer coffee, I suppose. So get yourself a cheap strainer and small pouches of various loose-leaves. Initially it will cost you maybe 10 to 20 bucks. Soon you will be splurging on the expensive limited-season premiums, I'm sure.

Mobile Dungeon TaskForce - Playtest Report 2

2026-02-25T23:19:41+02:00

Aight second playtest down. For those new here, MDTF is a game where spec ops soldiers fight fantasy dungeons. Simple OSR-style rules and compatibility with existing OSR adventures.

What Works

The basic Mark of the Odd core combined with ideas from Vagabond is still great.
The game features only 4 weapons but they feel distinct and interesting despite simple rules. Adding little modifiers like shotguns being short but AOE and snipers being long-distance but powerful force varying playstyles well.
Shadow of the Demon Lord style initiative over side-based initiative introduced fun tactical elements without bogging down play. I toyed around with a 3-action combat economy which was certainly crunchier but I think lean but tactical is more fitting for the game.
New story framing. Instead of fighting dungeons that are summoned by cultists, players fight the god of stories that is bringing fiction to life one dungeon at a time. More varied dungeons, a proper world-ending threat and overall more fun.
Vagabond-style saves against damage. Players always hit but will roll to avoid enemy attacks. Players have very little healt but doing well with saving throws allows them to feel special and stay alive.
STATs, CAPs, MAXes and SAVEs. I'll reserve a whole section explaining this system.

STATS, CAPS, etc.

What I have created is a funky combination of Into the Odd and Vagabond. Here's how it works:

You have three stats: Endurance, Reflex and Character
Each stat is a number between 2 and 7, a'la Vagabond. This is the MAX of the stat. The CAP of the STAT and the stat itself start here too.
For SAVES you roll a d20 and try to hit [20 - (2xSTAT)]. Classic saving throw stuff with precalculated static DC. Easy for the modern audience that likes to roll high.
Your stats are also resources. Endurance is your health and Character is your luck points for rerolls, asking free questions from the GM, pulling grenades out of your pocket etc.
Your Endurance resets after each combat to its CAP.
If your Endurance goes below 0 the remaining damage is reduced from the CAPs of your stats.
If a CAP goes below the current value of the STAT, the STAT also reduces (not MAXes or SAVEs though).
Your Character resets between adventures.
If your CAPs go to 0 you die.

Why is this cool? It's super simple once set up. You have your health and resources (Reflex will also feature use cases) that are small enough that you can't just spam them. But when you do take damage you must choose if you want to heal to a lower maximum or reduce your resources. Optimally you would spend your resources a little to give you a buffer against damage, preventing you from holding on to them too long. But spending them all on an encounter is also not that wise because this game can be pretty lethal.

What Didn't Work

Players did not spend Reflex points on Mythic Bastionland style gambits. Next up is gonna be a test for a called shot table utilizing the classic d12-shaped bodypart targeting die that is sold in some stores.
Character points cannot be used on rerolls because then you should always reroll when you are at risk of losing your CAP. Some kind of rerolls might still be needed because Vagabond-style saves can suffer from bad luck.
Dungeons only exist when there are witnesses. I wanted players to extract the civilians safely. But after they did they considered just dying so there is no-one to see the dungeon anymore. So I'm gonna figure out what incentives I can put in the narrative for them to fight like hell.
Guns had mods where each gun would have various types of attachments. This was fun but the added complexity might not be worth it as I found myself having to come up with more mods than I had inspiration for. Next test will feature simpler guns again, complexity can be brought in later.
I've decided to not care about XP for the time being. Leveling up is a future problem after the core works. Perhaps you get +1 HP per level or reroll a stat or something.

The game is not currently available anywhere but you can follow me on Bluesky or Itch to be the first to know when a playable version is out. Cheers!

Cities: Quick Size Reference

2026-02-17T23:20:12+02:00

We know fantasy worlds have villages, towns and cities. But how big exactly are they? I didn't do the math, so here's some extreme simplifications for your convenience.

Medieval

Village
Population: 200
Size: 1 ha
Approximately: the area inside of a 400m sports track

Town
Population: 2,500
Size: 15 ha
Approximately: Ellis Island (11ha) + Liberty Island (5.5 ha), New York (USA)

City
Population: 10,000
Size: 65 ha
Approximately: The area of Disneyland Park, California (USA) or Vatican City

Large City
Population: 50,000
Size: 300 ha
Approximately: The area of Central Park, New York (USA) or Medieval Paris

Metropolis
Population: 100,000 - 1 million
Size: varies
Approximately: Medieval Constantinople, Rome or Baghdad

Approximations
The above are approximations of medieval statistics. You can adjust these sizes by doubling or halving the population or area to create dense or scarce locations. The numbers are based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross.

Modern

Village
Population: 1000
Size: 0.5 km²
Approximately: Blockley, Gloucestershire, England

Town
Population: 10,000
Size: 20 km²
Approximately: Pélissann, Aix-en-Provence, France

Large Town
Population: 50,000
Size: 50 km²
Approximately: Woodstock, Ontario, Canada

City
Population: 250,000
Size: 100 km²
Approximately: Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England

Conurbation
Population: 3 million
Size: 350,000 km²
Approximately: City of Berlin, Germany

Approximations
The above are approximations based on statistics from real-life Earth. The locations have kept their populations approximately the same between years 2010 to 2020, so unless major population changes have happened they should still look relatively correct.

Need a City?

d12	Location	Nearby	Founded for
1	Coast	Caves	Arcane significance
2	Forest	Cliffs	Cultural significance
3	Hills	Dunes	Easy to defend
4	Island	Forest	Favorable climate
5	Lakeside	Hills	Fertile land
6	Mountainside	Lake	Natural resources
7	Plains	Mountains	Religious significance
8	Plaeau	River	Ruins of an an old city
9	Peninsula	Sinkhole	Settlers arrived here
10	River delta	Volcanic	Strategic location
11	Riverside	Wetland	Trade route
12	Valley	Wasteland	Travel route

How to Get Better at Game Design?

2026-01-09T14:29:57+02:00

Writing ttrpgs is a hobby many partake in because they just enjoy writing. I wager among the hobbyists there are some that want to improve their craft but lack the necessary knowledge to do so. I may not be qualified as a professional game designer yet but as I am finishing my Master's degree in Game Design and Development I feel like I'm at least qualified to talk about studying game design. This is but a simple writeup with the most basic of ideas but if I can get even one person to read the books I recommend today, I have succeeded.

Let's get the hard truth out of the way first: there are no shortcuts to getting better at game design. Like with any other skill, the secret is experience and hard work. The only way to improve is to make games and see how your designs work when played. The skill of a good designer is to predict what ideas are worth trying and how those ideas might work in practice but even the best designers fail and must test out their ideas rigorously. Design is not a savant skill, it's a process. Learn the process and you too can make great games.

Reading & Reading

You've done some design and some testing but things aren't working out. Why is that? It's because you don't have the necessary knowledge to make informed design choices. You're just trying out things randomly. Fear not though, there are two types of books you can read to improve: design theory and reference games.

Theory

The world is full of great and not so great books on design. The one's that I see recommended the most and that I can vouch for are The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman, originally 1988, revised 2013) for general design thinking and The Art of Game Design (Jesse Schell, 2008, just get the latest edition) for everything about games.

Design theory explains the process of design thinking and provides you with a series of mental models. Reading (or listening or watching) theory helps your brain structure games and subconsciously helps you design more efficiently. You will have to make your own mental models that fit your unique perspective but knowing how others see the world will help you build those models. There's no secret formula for great design but the more you read about how experienced designers think, the better you get at design thinking yourself.

References

Each game you design is unique. There is no secret formula for success, no source of perfect mechanics you can use. You must discover those ideas yourself. But what every good designer does is look at what other people have made. The hundreds and thousands of hours other designers spent figuring out what works for their games can be yours if you check out their games before making your own. Gather a large collection of references to memory and you'll come up with smarter ideas in no time. Pretty much no game I design comes from a vacuum, I'm always comparing ideas to existing solutions, pulling bits and pieces from here and there and modifying them to fit my needs. As a benchmark, a good game is about 90% old ideas and 10% new.

Back to Practice

You've read every book under the sun but you still struggle with your game. Why is that? Well the thing is you don't actually get better at design until you put that theory to practice. Your brain knows lots but it doesn't know how to use that knowledge, you gotta get it moving by making games and see how they operate.

I cannot stress enough the importance of making multiple games. When you work on a project for a long time you begin to get stuck in your assumptions. The game does improve, sure, but if your goal is to become a better designer it's more useful to bang out completely new and radical projects quickly than it is to polish a single idea to perfection. Remeber, your first game probably sucks, and your second is likely not going to be your magnum opus. Bake enough cakes to get them real fluffy before you start decorating, you know?

Fair warning though, don't forget you also need to learn how to finish games so at least every now and then go the extra mile and finish something. Only by publishing can your mind let go of the project and see your flaws and successes. There's always time to make a 2nd edtion. This is way easier to do if the games you make are small.

Conclusion

The idea that you benefit from learning both theory and practice isn't exactly groundbreaking. I wanted to do this little writeup to help new designers grow out of the notion that great games are designed by having some genius idea. No, they are made with a rigorous process of trying out different ideas until you find the perfect combination. To design is to solve hundreds of small issues in your game system, slowly improving on the rough parts until it works perfectly, instead of having to come up with a perfect machine from the get-go. Having a large collection of ideas at your disposal from your reading will help you find these little solutions. In addition, you must keep making games to train that brain of yours to put that reading you did to practice.

I feel like I end all of my writeups by telling people to make games but this time it feels extra important. Cheers!

Mobile Dungeon TaskForce - Playtest Report 1

2025-12-20T22:30:03+02:00

I've been working on a game I call Mobile Dungeon TaskForce. Storywise it's a simple game where human military spec ops fight fantasy dungeons. No, I have not seen the anime Gate.

The main design goal is to make a game that can easily convert existing OSR dungeons to play with this game and experience them from a new point of view. I like fantasy dungeons but I've never liked medieval dungeon crawlers.

To achieve this goal I've decided to marry two excellent dungeon games: Into the Odd by Chris McDowall and Vagabond by Taron "Indestructoboy" Pounds. All of the simplicity from the former and some action-first ideas from the latter. And there is of course going to be an NWOF spin on the whole thing because we like character customization in this house.

First playtest was set during the holidays so of course it was inspired by Die Hard. The players saved a skyscraper-bank from goblins after the vault of the bank got turned into a dragon's hoard. The players had a good time without any major hitches, thanks to the brilliant Mark of the Odd core. High lethality and some hand grenades already made the game quite fun to play.

Here's what needs work:

I tried using armor as a target number. Any damage below armor would be ignored, and above taken directly. But that felt useles at most armor numbers, so I'm going back to damage reduction.
More tactics: the players were already fans of Shadowdark so simplistic combat was not an issue but they still hoped for more tactical combat. So I'm bringing in Action Points from Nimble into the mix! Let's see how that goes.
More weapon mechanics: I already had four unique weapons that behaved differently in simple ways. AOE shotgun, high damage sniper, etc. The weapons also had optional attachments for minor tweaks. After testing, I will incorporate some of the attachments directly to the weapons. Players wanted the weapons to play very differently, so I will happily oblige and build in more mechanics to them.
Despite the simple premise lore is needed to better explain how and why dungeons exist and why the general public does not know about them. I'm considering making it so that dungeons don't show up on camera.
XP system to incentivise proper play. I'm thinking dealing out XP based on human hostages saved, as well as eliminating the heart of the dungeon (boss) and from figuring out why the dungeon appeared. Players need directions to avoid violating the Geneva Convention.

Overall I'm very happy how well this worked out of the gate (pun intended). The core is there, the premise works and now it's all about finding the right balance of crunch and simplicity.

The game is not currently available anywhere but you can follow me on Bluesky or Itch to be the first to know when a playable version is out. Cheers!