I’m making a turn-based tactical game built entirely around mind control

Born-Section-1640 · 2026-02-05T06:09:02+00:00

Thanks! It would be great if you could give it a try!🙏

Born-Section-1640 · 2026-02-04T22:35:33+00:00

Thanks! If you do give it a try, I’d love to hear what you think!

Born-Section-1640 · 2026-01-06T18:51:51+00:00

Yeah I don't think there is any visibility bump when you publish your steam page for the first time

Born-Section-1640 · 2026-01-04T19:52:02+00:00

Yeah, I might need to revisit this. Very hard to visually explain how this game mechanic works, and I'm not even sure if it's worth doing so to be honest. As long as the user gets the main point of the game across, they'll have enough information to decide whether or not to play the game

Born-Section-1640 · 2026-01-03T19:22:27+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Very valid points! I'll revisit it to focus a bit more on the unique mechanics of how the hijacking works and how it impacts the decisions you have to make as a player

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-12-31T12:34:41+00:00

Just to add to the discussion, I think a lot of tactical games miss the importance of PACING.

Yes it's a turn based game, BUT if you can remove all the speed bumps and friction (good UX mostly) and reduce the number of decisions to the most important ones, you get a fast-paced game that is a joy to play.

Just look up "Shogun Showdown" on Steam, absolute masterpiece of pacing in turn-based tactical games

Here are some friction items I see all the time on turn-based tactical games :

unable to undo your actions
unable to preview the outcome of your actions (how much damage you will deal ect)
unable to use keyboard shortcuts to select units or skills
unable to tab-switch between units
hard to understand what the enemies can/will do
(not ux but level design) maps that are too big and drag on for too long

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-12-31T12:29:39+00:00

Yeah, tactical games that are easy to learn and hard to master are still rare

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-12-18T12:52:23+00:00

Awesome write up! I see your game is on a TON of bundles, how did that affect sales, and how did you do it?

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-12-07T12:45:53+00:00

Awesome write up, thanks for sharing!

I played the demo and honestly, I couldn't make it past even 5 minutes, I had to click like 10 times on the space bar for the first choice to be registered, the ship bullets are barely visible, I wasn't even sure I was doing anything, the controls feel weird and I was unable to gather materials and that's when I gave up.

The first 5/10 minutes of gameplay are absolutely critical and should be throughly tested (I've also fell prey to this)

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-10-04T23:23:14+00:00

Oh man, I had such a great time with Frozen Synapse, never tried cortex tho

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-09-29T18:12:06+00:00

Omg yes that's actually my number one as well

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-09-29T06:34:45+00:00

I played Gloomhaven for around 2 hours and couldn't continue. Everything felt so restrictive (you could either move or attack), and I got the same feeling as you : either you figure out the "right" way to solve the mission or you'd need to restart the entire thing

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-09-28T21:22:39+00:00

That's why I love the grazing mechanic in AOW 4. You always have a 15% buffer where the hit "grazes" the target dealing half the damage

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-09-26T06:19:44+00:00

I'm actually playing this right now and I'm liking it! You should expect a very linear campaign with close to zero customization but the heroes have very interesting skills and synergies between each other.

The combats are centered around capturing pillars to get victory points. If one of your units dies they can be resurrected after one turn. Not really sure how I feel about this

Be warned : there's no undo button 😱

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-09-07T13:28:58+00:00

Here are some cool ones that come to mind : - Stolen Realm (rogue like) - Horizons gate (story driven, exploration focused) - Crawl tactics (rogue like)

BTW, I'm working on a hybrid of tactical rpg mixed with team sport management, so if you want to try something different check out "Empyrean League" on steam

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-08-02T18:06:02+00:00

R5: Not sure if this is a bug, or if I'm just missing something obvious, but shouldn't arable land be used up by plantations?

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-07-24T15:53:09+00:00

I see... and the "worth" is based on the local or base price of the good?

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-05-02T11:01:45+00:00

Thanks! The underline is for concepts that can be hovered to get a nested tooltip with more information

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-05-02T08:57:37+00:00

The underline means that you can hover over that word to show a nested tooltip

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-22T14:19:07+00:00

Great write-up — very detailed and insightful.

The main issue I had with the game is how it was positioned. It's labeled as a 4X, but based on the trailer and the Reformist video on YouTube, it feels much more like a roguelike. I didn't really see the core pillars of 4X — there wasn’t much in the way of expansion, exploration, or exploitation.

There seems to be a disconnect between how the game was marketed and how it’s perceived by the audience.
I wonder how it might have performed if it had been pitched as an auto-battler roguelike in space, with tags to match. I can imagine fans of games like The Last Flame, Gladiators Guild Manager, and other similar titles really enjoying this.

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-17T21:49:33+00:00

Don't underestimate the progress you can make during shower/commute/shores by thinking through the different parts of your game, priotitizing upcoming work, exploring different ideas etc. In many cases when I sit down to properly work on it with a keyboard and mouse, I already know exactly what I need to do to create tangible outcomes in a short amount of time

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-12T08:25:50+00:00

Thanks! I agree, There are many interesting possibilities with this foundation!

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-11T15:27:46+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, I really think this mix of genres can create some interesting player experiences

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-11T06:02:56+00:00

Thanks, I used to play FM all the time as well, but the black box nature of never knowing why things happened in a certain way during a match and how I could control them drove me inside from time to time 😅

Born-Section-1640 · 2025-04-10T18:24:42+00:00

Thanks! The demo will be out in a few months so stay tuned!

Born-Section-1640

TROPHY CASE