Guildlings: Developing Unique Combat System for Mobile Game

Introduction

Jamie: Sirvo Studios was initially in order to formalize the small team that was making Guildlings. We were all drawn to different aspects of the project, but we were united in our desire to make something fresh-feeling, a game that didn't rest on old genre tropes. We looked at other games for inspiration but we questioned everything, from the visual style of 3D games to the loop of RPG combat and the classic "hero's journey" path.

Our design and engineering team has previous experience in the indie and mobile game development, on titles like Threes, Misadventures of PB Winterbottom, and Midnight Star, but for many members of our crew, this is the first professional game project.  We’ve found that this mix of experience and fresh perspective helped us to find our own unique solutions to Guildlings.

Combination of 2D and 3D

Kyle: We rely on 2D images to convey emotion, personality, first-person perspectives, and interactions between characters. For exploring environments and representing bigger actions, we use 3D.

When working in 3D, organic or complex models like characters, creatures, or intricate props are modeled and animated in Maya. They're then painted with vertex colors and presented unlit in the game, though for one or two assets we're using simplified or simulated "lighting" to help readability.

For more simple level geometry like walls, stairs, and doors, we do the modeling in Unity using ProBuilder/ProGrids. Being able to model in-engine has saved a ton of time, and we've pushed Probuilder's modeling tools about as far as they can go.

We then have several custom shaders to make broad level geometry look good with minimal work. For example, we have a shader that samples the normals of the mesh to give us greyscale values from 0-1. This value can be further masked/tweaked using RGBA vertex color channels. We then use the final 0-1 values to sample the appropriate pixel from a texture swatch, from the left to the right. We end up with something approximating the control and clean color blocking of the hand-painted vertex colors, but which allows us to build large spaces quickly.

As for combining 2D and 3D, we've found that one key to blending the two is to limit the amount of fine detail in 2D. The lasso tool in Photoshop can create a "low-poly" silhouette in 2D. For both 2D and 3D, we also try to adhere to a fairly strict principle of using flat color blocks rather than linework, texture, or gradients (though there are a few cheats here and there).

Animation

Kyle: Our main humanoid characters are rigged and animated in Maya. Since the models will be presented unlit and fairly small on a mobile screen, we're able to use segmented limbs, Mario 64-style. This helps a lot with weight painting since an arm segment's weights can just be flooded to the appropriate bone.

Animation is a bottleneck in our production as it's somewhat time-consuming, so we try to limit the number of custom character animations. It's all animated by hand, but we try to lean into a more lo-fi cartoonish look whenever possible to set expectations that this is a cute and stylized game, and you shouldn't expect full motion-captured performances.

Combat System

Jamie: Guildlings is a game about leading a team of modern-fantasy teenage heroes on an adventure. From early on, we knew that we were interested in the emotional and character-building side of that dynamic. The classic combat model of RPGs forces you to advance and gain strength by killing as many enemies as possible. Even though we liked many of the elements of RPGs, it felt wrong for us to set a contemporary teenage cast out on that sort of grind. At the very least, it created a disconnect with the story. At worst, it turned our heroes into something very dark. So we needed a different combat metaphor.

We knew we wanted a relatively simple and quick experience because that was what fit the mobile platform and our desired pacing. We knew we wanted to use character emotions in combat because it needed to interact with our story systems. Finally, we wanted the player to be able to achieve victory without killing the opponent. 

We went through five full revisions of combat to meet these goals, along with countless smaller tweaks.  Our first drafts were very "puzzley". The choices were interesting but it was way too dense. Players took ten to fifteen minutes to complete a round, so by the time they were done they would struggle to remember where they were in the story.  So we created something that was the polar opposite, making combat a single choice with finite resources. As we expected, that was far too limiting for players, but we were able to work between those extremes to find the right mix. 

Early Drafts of Guildlings Combat:

We ended up with a combat system that was a mix of traditional and non-traditional elements. Like many turn-based RPGs, players are trying to keep their own energy above zero and choosing a single ability for their team every round. However, instead of wearing down enemy health, combat is a fixed number of turns that you must survive. While this system created some special design challenges for us, it also provided some really cool opportunities in terms of non-violent player moves. When players know at what point combat will end, they can focus on the goal of LEAVING combat with their characters in positive moods. And that really aligns with our design.

Getting away from the enemy-health-model of combat also lets us put serious trouble and funny annoyances on the same level. We can basically represent ANY tense situation that can ruin a teenage hero’s day, and while we have some classic enemies like murderous spiders and skeletons, we also have insult-flinging bullies and terrible-smelling ghosts. 

Mobile Game Peculiarities

Ryan: Two of the biggest considerations when developing mobile games are User Interface and Input. Mobile devices have fantastic touchscreen displays which you can use to make the player feel closely connected to your game world but you must take care to make sure that they are able to clearly see and easily interact with the game. Otherwise, that connection is weakened. Consider what the visual focus of your game should be and how you expect users to interact with the touchscreen so as to preserve that visual focus. For Guildlings, we decided early on that the party of adventurers was the star and that we wanted players to be able to play the game while holding their phone with one hand. We spent a great deal of time iterating on our in-game view to make sure that the party was not obscured by the player's fingers and that the player could comfortably control the game while holding the phone with one hand. 

Simplistic Art Style

Kyle: When we started out, our art was much simpler, but over time the fidelity has grown. Whenever possible, we try to imply than represent. This makes the art more readable, especially at small sizes, but also saves on art creation time and performance. Our flat-shaded art style also allows us to avoid using textures for most of the 3D art in the game, and the art is all unlit, so we're able to spend a bit more of our budget on polygons where necessary. We're also employing tricks like using world Y position for water.

Distribution

Jamie: Guildlings is currently available on Apple Arcade, and for the time being it is an Apple Arcade exclusive. The currently-available content is just the first part of a larger story. We’ll be releasing a major update that continues the adventure later this year.

Sirvo Studios Team, Developer of Guildlings

Interview conducted by Daria Loginova