combat is finally done (the mechanics part, at least)
Big one today. The core combat system is finished. Like, actually finished — not "finished until I rip it apart again" finished.
The last piece was fighting enemy heroes. I had everything in place — creature AI, archetypes, skills — but the fights felt flat. Safe, even. You could just walk away from anything, and the enemy hero felt like a fancy mob, not like an opponent.
So the whole thing got reworked:
Move + action for everyone. Before, any action ended your turn instantly. Now every unit moves AND attacks (or uses a skill) in the same turn. Sounds small, writes completely different fights.
Retreating has a price now. Step out of melee range and you eat a free hit. Skills that dash or teleport you out don't trigger it — so escaping clean is something you spend a skill on, not a free button.
You command your creatures directly. Two markers over each creature — move and attack. Every order costs leadership equal to the creature's evolution, so you're constantly deciding who gets your full attention and who fights on their own AI this turn.
Enemy heroes act like players. They kite, they keep part of their swarm in reserve and summon mid-fight, they hide behind their creatures and make you cut through the line to reach them.
Fights start near the center of the map now too, so no more five turns of walking at each other.
What's left is the pretty part: animations and effects for a few hundred skills. That's a mountain of work, but the foundation under it won't move anymore.
Also a bit about villages (raid into the darkness system)
What Village Raids Are Actually Going to Be
I’ve been working on a new location type for a while, so I figured it was time to explain what it actually is instead of just posting random screenshots.
The idea is abandoned villages.
Not another dungeon with houses instead of corridors, but an actual settlement: larger, more open, with houses, paths, yards, and useful buildings spread around the area. The people who lived there are either gone or have turned into something worse.
At first, villages were mostly meant to be another place to loot basic materials like pottery, cloth, clay, and similar everyday resources. You go in, take what you can carry, and get out. Some buildings might need to be cleared, while others could be avoided if you’re careful.
That already works, but it felt like villages should have a bigger reason to exist.
One of those reasons will be animals.
The current plan is that animals can only be found during village raids. There won’t be another place where you can reliably get a chicken or rabbit. You’ll enter a village and hope you get lucky, with chances possibly being somewhere around one in a thousand.
So even if most runs only give you basic materials, there’s always a small chance that this is the run where you bring something much more valuable home.
Villages will also have different levels of wealth, and I want that to be visible directly in the location.
A poor village might only have a few small huts. A wealthier one could have a forge, a mill, animal pens, and other useful structures visible before you even enter.
The idea is that you should be able to look at a village and get a rough idea of what might be inside. You can then decide whether it’s worth clearing, which building you want to reach first, or whether you should grab something valuable and leave.
The enemies also need to be more interesting than a hundred versions of the same mutated villager.
I’m planning to use the archetype system that already exists in the game, with aggressive enemies, swarms, support units, ranged threats, and other specialised roles. A large village should feel like an actual encounter with some structure to it, not just a pile of health bars.
The larger idea is that villages will also connect directly to MyLand.
Forges, mills, animal pens, and other buildings found inside villages are also things you’ll eventually be able to construct on your own land. The same building can exist as something you raid in the world and something you later build for yourself.
That also creates a more natural way to unlock blueprints.
Instead of finding a forge blueprint as a random item inside a chest, you could find an actual forge in a village, inspect it, and learn how to build one.
You find the building in the world, understand how it works, and then recreate it at home.
None of this is close to finished, and this isn’t a release-date post. It’s more of a general look at where the system is heading.
Right now, I’m still focused on combat visuals, so village raids will be parked for a while. I mostly wanted to write the idea down properly before it turned into another folder full of screenshots and unfinished notes.
The visual side has honestly been the most enjoyable part so far. The game has gone from flat 2D tiles to locations that are starting to feel like actual places, with proper walls, roofs, worn paths, and recognisable buildings.