The key takeaway from this project — RPG systems are hard.

Our decision to create a turn-based RPG system was based on our preconceived notion that a turn-by-turn RPG would not be too hard to program. The reality proved more difficult. For one, the design of a turn-based RPG has to be tuned in such a way that players intuitively understand the effect their moves will have, and that means designing and tuning behind-the-scenes equations to handle the game’s interplay of statistics. This is a time-consuming process of playtesting and tweaking. As such, the game’s overall concept proved to be drastically over-scoped.

In the end, with the time we had, we were able to create a working and playable combat system, and felt successful with what we achieved. The trade-off was that we had to leave behind creating an overworld and out-of-combat gameplay.

This proved to be a valuable lesson in determining game scope. I came away from this experience with a better understanding of the time it takes to create a polished gameplay system, and that will only help me set more realistic project scopes in the future.