What are Actions?

One of the core parts of a turn based tactics game are the actions different units can use (shoot, move, etc). A player can use an action when it is their turn and if the unit has energy left to complete it.

Actions have lots of different properties:

• Inflict/heal damage
• Apply Status Effects
• Area of Effect range
• Visibility settings
• Visual effects

The Action Designer

We decided early on that the actions would need to be very easy to create so we could iterate quickly - enter the Entity Action Designer.

Using this tool I can quickly create an action with unique behaviours. Below is a picture of the action 'Shoot' in the designer:

The action above is a simple shoot action with a fire effect that will inflict damage to all enemies within two tiles of the target. The action will also inflict a status effect called 'Burn' which will deal 1 damage per turn for 2 turns.

The Result

And here is the action being used in game:

With this simple designer we can create a lot of different actions that change the way the player has to approach a situation. We can also create actions that are unique to each unit, which is something I'll post about in the future.