The Road Not Taken script
| Script | On-screen extra blurbs | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|
| Library of Ruina is an auto-battler.
At least, it was, early in development. Hi, I'm Zero, and in this video we'll take a look at Library of Ruina's combat system and how it eventually turned into one of the most unique takes on Turn-Based Combat out there right now. Note that I'll only be giving an overview of the system, refer to my other videos for the details. I'll also be using more generic terminology as much as possible. To make up for the lack of detail, I've added a couple of extras - a bit about the sequel, Limbus Company, and some thoughts about game development. |
[ Library of Ruina ] - Alpha version Battle Video | |
| In the Beginning | ||
| In order to properly explain how we got here, we must first go back to the beginning, after the full launch of the prequel, Lobotomy Corporation.
Now this isn't much of a spoiler as we're already at the 3rd game in the franchise, but LobCorp ends with a very big sequel hook. And so the devs immediately began work on that sequel. Since LobCorp leaned more towards management, it was decided early on that this new game would be more action oriented. The Director mentioned in an interview that he wanted it to be like Uncharted Waters 4, a game whose combat was mostly hands-off and was fun to watch. |
LoR crowdfunding Interview | |
| This lead to the initial pre-Alpha prototype, an Auto-Battler.
From the footage they uploaded to their YouTube channel, this prototype does seem to get the “fun to watch” part right. But you can guess what the team thought about it: it's mobile game-y and doesn't have enough gameplay elements. To address these glaring issues, they started adding more stuff for the player to do, starting with the cards. |
Do ProjectMoon Dream of Auto Battle Simulation Game? | |
| The usual (Card Game) stuff | ||
| Despite the first line fakeout of this video, I'm sure many viewers who are only vaguely aware of what this game is about still know that this is a card game, whether through quick glimpses of gameplay, or just paying attention to the intro.
So let's go with that first, pushing away all the freaky game mechanics to the side for now, and skip straight to the final game and talk about card game stuff that should be familiar to a modern indie gamer. On the surface, there's a lot of overlap with your usual collectible card games like Magic: the Gathering. You get to build a deck for each of your units, which they then get to draw from in combat. Each card has a resource cost, and each unit has limited resources available in order to play their cards. As you might expect, this setup leads to usual card game concepts like mana curves. There's also a booster pack mechanic, which is a bit controversial for this kind of game. Oh and yeah, since it's a single player game, you get to have an idea what the enemies are going to do next. |
Slay the Spire | |
| And that's basically the extent of familiar card game elements in Ruina's combat system.
Remember, this game wasn't a card game from the start. By having roots in Auto-Battlers, this let the devs experiment with stuff you don't typically see in card games. And oh boy did Project Moon try out some crazy stuff... | ||
| Changing the Way Units Deal Damage | ||
| You can already see one of those experiments in the initial prototype take note how these two are fighting but aren't taking any damage.
There's just a counter going up. If we rewind a bit, we can see them acting like in a normal Auto-Battler. That is, both attack and take damage. But have you stopped to think why, why do we consider this normal? Just taking damage and not doing anything about it? One could say that it's actually realistic, if you get stabbed or shot, you get stabbed or shot. But we're talking about games here, surely, there are more fun and engaging ways to depict combat. |
Battlefield V – War in the Pacific Official Trailer | |
| Ultimately, this is a relic from video game's history: many of our games have their roots from tabletop games.
And since they predate handheld computers, their combat systems have to be as simple as possible while still trying to simulate potentially complicated situations. |
A Quick History of Wargames | |
| Those systems were simplified further once they became video games, this time due to screen and input limitations.
And this system of attacking and dealing damage just stuck… through the decades. |
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| There have been innovations, but when you think about it, they're mostly just ways to take out enemies faster; the core is still there - one side attacks, other side gets hit. | ||
| However, if we look at other media, there's another fun and engaging way to represent combat...
Two opposing forces parrying each other's blows until one side overpowers the other. In short, Clashing |
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R – Announcement Trailer
DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO – Goku VS Vegeta - Rivals Trailer [BUDOKAI TENKAICHI Series] | |
| And that's what Library of Ruina has settled on as its preferred combat style, all the way to the release.
And while you can still choose to tank damage, or find ways to attack without Clashing, most of the game will revolve around setting up the right Clashes for your team. I'm not a game design essayist so I won't dwell on this game-changing paradigm shift for long. If you want to know more, again, link in the description for a guide. I will however, discuss something Clash-related that I don't talk about in that other video… |
A Spoiler-Free Guide to Library of Ruina | |
| Removing a Role | ||
| Namely, your units don't take as much damage as they would in a normal turn-based game.
I mean, what do you expect when your units don't just stand around like dumb-asses taking damage. Less damage leads to a bigger side-effect: Your teams no longer need dedicated healers. No, not in the usual “you wiped out the enemy before they can hurt your party” sort of dea.l I'm talking about long, drawn out battles without any healers. Stop and think about it for a moment: How would party-based combat look like without healers? For one, more time spent on attacking. Gone are the “ok we need to stop attacking this turn and heal up unless we want to die.” We can also replace the dedicated healing abilities with passive effects like Regeneration, or to be more in line with our constant Clashing, triggered effects like Lifesteal. They don't even need to be that strong, what would be a joke in other games can be perfectly viable means of sustaining your team just because they don't take as much damage. This results in another interesting side-effect: when your units do take a lot of damage, battles suddenly become a lot more tense as we removed all those dedicated healing abilities, including revives. I could go on, but I think you got the point. Change something as fundamental as damage dealing, and lots of things will change down the line. And that's gonna be an ongoing theme as we continue this video. |
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| Adding Another Dimension to Combat | ||
| Getting back on track... let's return to the Alpha build and see how they originally implemented the card game mechanics.
Each turn you get to assign a card to each unit, with each card adding a number of pips to the unit's queue. Each pip represents an attack, or more accurately, a potential Clash. Then at the start of every following turn, the pips are refreshed and you get to assign a new card to the queue, which again adds other pips. This way of playing cards does look odd though it does make a bit more sense in an Auto-Battler sense where multiple actions are expected in the “auto” part of the battle. But some of you may have remembered from earlier - Library of Ruina uses the more familiar resource-based system for playing cards. And in other games of the sort, you could just do the multiple actions part by playing multiple cards as long as you have resources to do so. So, did they switch to this approach? |
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| By the pre-beta, the answer to that is yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that they ditched the part where cards you played in earlier turns stick around. But also “no” because the rest remained mostly intact - you can only play one card per turn (though later on you units can gain multiple slots effectively letting you play more). And more importantly, each card still consists of multiple pips, though now they've become Dice. |
[ Library of Ruina ] Battle Video | |
| Currently WIP | ||
Misc.
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Translation are welcome, contact me at bry@bryanbibat.net if you're interested in submitting one.
