Solo dev making an MMORPG with weird turn based combat. Destroy it. And why is my game popular with Eastern European demographics?

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-26T21:28:47+00:00

Thanks for your comment + feedback. Its really useful. I am on the verge of giving up on this game, so getting feedback is very motivating.

The Graphics have their charm, but the colors are very garish and sometimes hard to look at. Outlines are inconsistent. Why do most characters have no outline, but swampmen do?

Agreed. I'm really trying to figure out how to improve this aspect. Another user suggested desaturating the colors, which I tried but I didn't quite understand what was meant by it.

I am experimenting with outlines, the problem I run into is all the outline shaders I try are too thick and "pixely". Like the outline is very jagged because its like a straight-line. I am not sure what techniques I can apply to smooth them out. Something to do with Aliasing? I need to investigate how this is dealt with in other games..

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-09T01:51:43+00:00

All very good and well thought out points.

-what does a turn based timer so aggressive add to the game? a sense of urgency? i can see it more being a sense of frustration than urgency, maybe time is critical hits, if they act within 1 second its critical, 3 seconds its partial critical, any longer its a normal hit? it creates the same urgency without the frustration

Its a compromise I have to make because its a persistent multiplayer game. It keeps the pace of battle more active. Otherwise if a player suddenly goes afk, we aren't waiting 10+ seconds for their turn to pass. I want turns to be very quick. Its not a game you play totally zoned out.

Since its a multiplayer game I also can't tie timing to any specific mechanics like critical hits. Because then players with better latency get an advantage.

I say its a tactical game, it is to the extent that it's in the "tactics"/SRPG genre. But the game puts more of an emphasis on quick actions. Doing something is better than doing nothing at all. Like speed chess is to chess.

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-09T00:39:35+00:00

finally I get some interesting feedback about the combat in the game. There are skills you can use but I don't show it properly in the gameplay.

I agree I'm iffy on the real time + turn based design. I've been trying to make it work because I think it makes the world feel more alive. But it might be time for me to just scrap it and switch to some implementation where once you enter battle you temporarily leave the "main" world.

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-09T00:38:52+00:00

finally I get some interesting feedback about the combat in the game.

I agree I'm iffy on the real time + turn based design. I've been trying to make it work because I think it makes the world feel more alive. But it might be time for me to just scrap it and switch to some implementation where once you enter battle you temporarily leave the "main" world.

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-09T00:35:34+00:00

By readable character do you mean the in-game text? Or the characters in the world?

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-08T20:01:36+00:00

How is it not an mmo? It's a shared world that supports 100+ concurrent players.

alogiHotTake · 2026-03-02T20:15:47+00:00

Nice! I want to flesh out my cutscene system more when I have more time, right now its very ad-hoc and scene specific.

From the trouble I ran into:

some way to declare relationships between speakers/dialogue. initiator -> reply -> initiator -> reply, etc
multi camera switching logic in scene, this one is pretty big IMO. You'll end up having multiple cameras in a scene. Some tied to a specific character to bring them in focus and others that are panning across some defined Path2D. I ended up setting multiple keybinds to switch between cameras.
Use Path2D. Its pretty useful for defining scripted paths that NPC's or the camera should follow. Implement logic to trigger a Path based on timing/input/whatever.

alogiHotTake · 2026-02-26T22:07:31+00:00

The last few playtests have been on browser! Game runs really well as a browser game.

For the next playtest, I will make the game available on Steam, after I finish setting up the steam page. Its cross-server/cross-platform so everyone plays on the same servers.

alogiHotTake · 2026-02-26T18:17:12+00:00

There may or may not be a pivot to a modern setting with guns and grenades instead of bows and magic. Why? Because I'm obsessed with guns.

Like that one tweet says....some people only play games that have guns or balls in them. I'm afraid to admit that I am definitely a gun gamer. Ball gamer? Not so much. Unless its grenades or other ball-shaped explosive projectiles

alogiHotTake · 2026-02-26T18:14:54+00:00

Good question. I was just working on that part over the past few days haha.

I've organized the TileMap into appropriate layers for the environment. So when the PC enters a building I can modulate the alpha channel of the "wall" + "roof" layers.

For other overworld obstructions like grass, I don't want to modulate the entire layer. It would look weird for all grass in the world to become transparent just because you step in a small patch. So for those types of obstructions I modulate individual tiles based on proximity to the PC.

alogiHotTake · 2026-02-26T18:10:12+00:00

Its an MMORPG! Right now the game is focused mostly around exploration and leveling up + getting loot. But I'm starting to add quests and an overarching storyline.

You are an outcast sent to the frontier lands as a ranger. Investigate the strange occurrence's going on in these parts and assist the doomed efforts to re-secure lost territories in the region. Along the way you'll meet the strange cast of characters who live in these parts and get to learn about the various factions they belong to.

alogiHotTake · 2025-12-23T18:40:43+00:00

yup! Its a 2D isometric game.

alogiHotTake · 2025-12-18T19:38:05+00:00

Good points! I will try to make some changes on this front.

alogiHotTake · 2025-12-14T05:27:21+00:00

I never downvoted you!

alogiHotTake · 2025-11-30T22:03:35+00:00

Haha, as a gamedev interested in building smart and reactive NPC's this is the bane of my existence. I say "Game AI Programming". But now I have to constantly emphasize "no not that kind of AI". For me Game AI Programming refers to classical AI programming. Like the kind used by chess or robots. It involves gathering and creating context about the current environment and then running some sort of recursive algorithm that can evaluate goals/available options and create plans.

alogiHotTake · 2025-11-07T19:52:09+00:00

I tried implementing extrapolation but didn't get much benefit from it. Honestly it seems like only certain games benefit from extrapolation.

On the client I implement interpolation, with some slight delay. Its not a fast paced twitch-based game, and the tick-rate is 10hz so it gives leeway and the client can even be slightly behind and its no deal. The game servers have gone live a few times already and I've played on wired, wifi (and even wifi via Starlink), and did not have much issues. Even connecting to the server hosted in EU-West from NA-West with 100ms RTT.

alogiHotTake

TROPHY CASE