So continuing from my last post http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/26/brainstorming-7/.

I started thinking about which game genres I really love, and it essentially boiled down to : RPG, Strategy, and DotA-likes. Well DotA-like games are fundamentally focused around multi-player, which under this time-limit I can’t code (And I probably couldn’t code even without a time-limit), so that’s out. RPGs are great for this theme, but unfortunatly most of the meat from RPGs comes from copious amounts of designed content, which with the imposed time-limit is going to be difficult to execute even if I procedurally generate it. So that leaves one genre: Strategy!

So what makes a strategy game tick? Well, there in existence are two types of distinct strategy games: RTS and TBS. However, since we are focusing on Strategy games in particular we want to make a game that only really focuses on what is found in both games.

So what is strategy?

strat·e·gy

/ˈstratəjē/

Noun

1. A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.
2. The art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle.

 

Okay so we have a great start. In both TBS and RTS we perform a series of actions to achieve a greater goal. So I made a quick Venn Diagram 

 

Obviously this is nowhere near comprehensive (Just drunk man rambling), but it helps narrow down the focus on what is in the center. Some of these are derivations of one another, while some aren’t necessary but make the game infinitely better for very little effort. Currently the only concept being incorporated into our minimalistic strategy game is: A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. I’m going to spend the next few hours researching good strategy games, and exactly what made them good and boiling them down to the core mechanics, comparing them against this list and creating a set concepts to be incorporated into our strategy game.