Wow I am shocked I haven't blogged about this before.
Did a little digging back on my own blog posts and noticed that I've only vaguely referenced this project that I think about every once and a while... of course there's a good reason for that.
Hm yeah and that was back in summer 2023!
Wen moon indeed!
That being said, with AI making gigantic leaps and bounds on top of my faith in 2025 being a fabulous year for crypto... my thoughts have turned back to the pipe-dreams as it were. For example today I was thinking about what types of classes and archetypes I would use if I ever created this turn-based RPG.
One idea I was mulling around was having the the opening classes be basic and a little boring but, when they reach max level, they would then evolve into a more powerful class. I'm not completely married to the idea but I think it does have some merit and would somewhat set it apart from other games, while still being able to pay homage to the old classics I played as a child.
The cult following of this game speaks for itself.
Castle of the Winds was the first RPG game I played on PC. Many like to claim it was the beginning of the roguelike genre but I don't really agree with this at all. In roguelike games you're kind of supposed to die and it's extremely random. CotW allowed you to save the game and load where you left off if you happened to fall down a trapdoor and get wrecked. The inventory is also exactly the same style as a lot of other popular RPGs... and you level up and do all the normal RPG stuff which is not typical of roguelikes.
One of the weirdest things about this game is that there was a "time" in the game measured in days:hours:minutes:seconds. The easiest way to get your life and mana back was to sleep, and a lot of the time you'd just sleep in a dungeon and monsters would find you and attack you while you slept and you'd have to wake up and kill them to continue sleeping.
The thing that always kind of annoyed me as a kid was the fact that it would take multiple [in-game] hours to get your mana back but not very long to get your health back, so if you were a spellcaster you'd be sleeping way more than if you just focused on physical damage and only used mana to heal and teleport back to town. I always thought it was a weird mechanic... that and the fact that if your bags were overflowing with loot you'd become super slow and unable to run away as fast. Not only did strength let you swing your sword harder but it also let you carry more loot. This is when game developers started realizing that making game mechanics realistic isn't always the best way to go in terms of balancing. I've never seen a video game since try to incorporate both weight and bulk into a character's ability to hold loot.
Final Fantasy
This was the first RPG I played on a console (Nintento). You might recognize one of the characters considering I've been rocking the red-mage avatar for 8 years straight. In fact I even beat the game a couple years ago using all 4 red-mages as my "Light Warriors". It's one of the only games like this I've played where you get to choose which classes you want to use. From here the classes were either hard coded into the game or you only picked a single hero (which isn't very conducive to turn based play and is basically only good for real time action).
So how would Castle of the Moon be different?
I honestly should go out and find a lot more turn-based games to play just to make sure there aren't some killer mechanics developers have dreamed up that I don't know about yet. Darkest Dungeon was always on my list but alas I never played it. If you know of any good turn based strategy or RPG games let me know in the comments.
That being said I am a fan of the hexagonal structure, as opposed to a square grid, even though it adds a little complexity into the mix. However, one of the big gripes I always had with turn based combat, especially in things like the Final Fantasy series, is that positioning doesn't matter. All the characters are just standing in a void and taking swings at each other.
I find that style to be extremely annoying because it creates an environment that is way more of a mindless grind rather than the actual strategy game that it should be. If I can just mindlessly farm mobs a couple lowers level than me that pose no threat... get to max level and win the game without any problem... then what was even the point? Games, especially the watered down candy-colored ones of the modern era, completely lack any risk or excitement to them.
And that is the paradigm that I'd like to flip on its ear.
And now that we can add crypto and real money directly into the mix, there's really no excuse why something like this doesn't exist yet (other than overwhelming greed, underwhelming ingenuity, and relentless economic Sybil attack). I want to create a game that gives people adrenaline rushes when something intense happens. I want people to table-flip rage-quit the game because they just blundered and lost it all. I want someone to stream themselves having a panic attack. That's right: if someone doesn't get swatted and/or killed because of my game I will consider it a failure!?
How can such a thing be accomplished?
Well for one I want the game to be extremely difficult. I want to create an economic system that essentially forces everyone to work together in order to even make the game playable; maybe I'll call it Xtreme PvE or something cheesy like that. I also want the entire game to be balanced around hardcore-mode; meaning if your party dies you lose all those characters and all the gear they were wearing. And no matter where you are and what you are doing there's always at least a tiny tiny chance that you'll get extremely unlucky and be killed. That will certainly make people think twice about farming a low level area with their decked loadout. There needs to be a sweet spot where risk vs reward collide and force gamers to play the game how it's supposed to be played.
Conclusion
Well I didn't actually say any of the things I actually meant to say. Just goes to show you that even the most basic of games can get insanely complex when you start digging into the weeds. Luckily AI has been quite helpful in sussing out which parts are doable from the infeasible. I'll probably have to start working on an official game design document for this one sooner or later.
Some games have a mechanic where when the disparity between the player and the monster is too great, that no exp is rewarded. Or some threshold where the exp rewarded is such a small percentage of that needed to be level, that it would take hundreds of hours kill rats or baby goblins to advance. That mechanism seems effective for sending people along to greener pastures.
Never stopped me in WOW from killing 20 humanoids at a time to farm low level cloth en masse.
Never stopped any of the thousands of gold farmers and bots either.
In this case the XP is totally irrelevant.
It's hard to explain exactly what I'd like to see get built without writing a book on it.
In a game balanced around hardcore mode XP will be easier to come by because players are constantly dying.
The farming is a good point I did that in Asheron's Call way back in the day. Asheron's Call had the best loot system of any game I've ever played. The loot was level appropriate but it was random within ranges, so it could generate all kinds of neat stuff.
You've got your potential PHD Dissertation "HARDCORE MODE: PWNED NOOBS"
Hardcore mode is only unforgiving on other games because no other game is designed for hardcore mode to be the standard. None that I know of anyway. Although as I have already alluded to here the entire Roguelike/Roguelite genre seems to be the exception.
So what I'm envisioning is more of a turn-based roguelike MMO with a big economy linked to crypto.
These games way predate graphical UI :)
If I was to recommend another game to play for a different perspective it would be any of the Ultima series.
Looking at Ultima Online a little more it has a skill-based system instead of XP/levels which is something I've thought about quite a bit. I've always felt like it makes more sense to level up the skills that actually get used... but again games went another direction because of the whole "just because it's realistic doesn't mean it's a good idea for gaming" situation.
I remember Ultima but I never actually played it.
Missed opportunity!
It was definitely the monthly fee that threw me off and convinced me it couldn't be worth it.
I was thinking of the single player games but yeah ultima online might be closer to your vision
Wth! Sounds like an insane idea, but I love it. If someone rage quits, it would be interesting to watch especially if the stakes are high. Do you think there can be some sort ways to capture these moments if the person is not streaming. Like inbuilt highlights like fortnight. Would also be nice to post those highlights hehehehe. Also, a difficult game sounds like a good idea, most games are easier for people who invest more in the system, more money almost equal easy route.
Yeah that's the idea it would be public domain so anyone would be able to see anything.
I used to play Final Fantasy pretty much non stop. Between that and dragon Warrior 3, I loved those kind of games. Some of the later versions. Do put a bit of emphasis on front row and back row characters when you are fighting. Fallout also has a totally aggravating inventory system that only lets you carry a certain weight of stuff.
Indeed the frontrow backrow mechanic was one of those things that clued me in to how positioning needs to matter more.
Oooh.. I luv turn-based games! There's no pressure to hurry up and do something.. 💪😉🤙
So many projects, So little time..
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
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Fun, fun, fun. I remember the first time I experienced that adrenaline rush you mention. I was playing Evercrack... er, Everquest, back in the 90s, and took a shortcut through a zone I didn't belong in at my low 30s, and ended up fighting a lvl 50 giant. By dint of extreme cowardice and running away a lot, I managed to beat the giant. After that, the fun of farming giants didn't wear thin until they were no longer much of a challenge because I'd leveled up so much.
If you can make a game with that kind of adrenaline rush, I might even dust off my WASD keys and give it a crack.. er, quest or two.
Thanks!
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turnbased roguelike - basically my favourite genre.
darkest dungeon didnt blow my mind. the town screen slowed things down and made me not want to do a run before Id performed all the optimising tasks.... so instead of doing either, i just stopped playing. but thats a bit of a me thing, I dont push through if something gets in the way of my fun. The actually gameplay was somewhat gruelling as well with all the 'take that' mechanics kicking your ass the whole time. If it could have been more like Slay The Spire but with a team and positioning mechanics that would be incredible.
Battle Brothers is an insane turn-based for detail. Each battle is on a grid map with multiple height layers and terrain modifiers and stuff. When you lose a dude, he's gone for good and you have to hire more and feed them and equip them and stuff. Its hardcore but I feel like you'd like it.
I loved X-Com 2 but again, the ship management screen is a painful interlude between battles and actually totally makes me not want to play it again which is a shame. Just let me level up my crew, give me some simple roguelike decisions to make which affect the build and playstyle, then let me fight. I really dont want to have to manage some kind of laborious colony scenario in between just to stay in the game.
quickfire, turnbased, strategies with deep synergies and super creative build options, thats what I want to see. Ultra Replayable. Each run feels like sculpting a new and exciting creation... you cant just lean in to the same build over and over because it doesn't always work out. thats what I love about Slay The Spire. It is the finest of all the turnbased roguelikes. And everyones hungry for more, but nothing quite lives up to it...
Tainted Grail is pretty awesome, I reckon you'd like that. Like StS its a deck building game, but a lot more narrative RPG vibes.
For The King was surprisingly fun and you could play multiplayer with 3 players commanding a different hero. That was enjoyable. The map itself was a turn based puzzle type explorer, then the battles were kind of traditional party based rpg.
Into The Breach - incredible simple effective design. Turnbased Roguelike puzzle game where your robots have to protect buildings from giant aliens. Understated masterpiece
I also want to mention Banners Of Ruin because its effectively a slay the spire type deck builder but with a max party of 6 and various positional mechanics. I keep coming back to it even though it isnt an astoundingly satisfying game, but somehow it feels closer to doing what I wish Darkest Dungeon did without all the annoying town management stuff.
Nowhere Prophet is a game that SHOULD be awesome but just isnt. I feel like you would appreciate everything its trying to put on the table....mid-sized turn-based battles with lots of expendable units and roguelike story decisions.....and yet somehow its just not that fun. Like with Banners of Ruin I would love to look at this concept and rework it with way more fun thrown over it. Plus they really didnt add enough story content to make the decisions feel replayable. I have some epic ideas for a game of this sort, although not with the deckbuilding element, but that would be a whole other lengthy comment ;p
You've probably already got the idea that I own a lot of deckbuilders, but Griftlands is an interesting specimen. As well as building a battle deck, you also build a diplomacy deck which you can use to argue, threaten and compliment other characters in to shaping the story for you. It plays out similarly to the battles, with the opponent using counter arguments and excuses and things. Pretty funny, and quite complex and tactical. In fact again, like with a few of these examples, the detail and mechanic are good/interesting but somehow the fun just isnt sustainable and I personally got weary of the gameplay. Lots to take inspiration from though.
Then I also had to mention frickin baldurs gate 3 and divinity original sin 2. I mean these are AAA turnbased battlers with all the fantasy storyline and glorious build mechanics. I assume you know of them so I wont bother explaining. Just had to be mentioned,