As mentioned last week, Redemption Harem has a pretty big focus on combat. As a writer, my focus is always on making sure everything supports the story, but if Love/Loss is basically a visual novel with RPG elements, Redemption Harem is on the other end of the spectrum, being more gameplay than anything else.
So this week, I'm gonna dig into the way the combat system works.
The basics of it is that it's still RPG Maker combat, but rather than the purely turn-based system that Maids & Masters and Love/Loss use, Redemption Harem uses MZ's side view battles, as well as using the in-built Time Progress (Wait) system and random encounter zones. What this means visually is that you get to see your party's character sprites and some additional animations during combat. Systematically, Agility plays a bigger role; faster combatants get turns in combat more quickly. The (Wait) part means that time stops while you're entering commands, so you don't need to worry about enemies attacking you while you're thinking about what is the best move to make. The random encounters will be familiar to RPG veterans - rather than seeing enemies on the map, you'll come into combat at random while you're walking in areas where combat can occur, both on the world map and in hunt areas. Further, where you're walking can affect what you encounter, with some enemies only appearing in hunt areas or on the world map.
The way the party system is used will also be very different from my other projects. You can bring up to three other characters with you, but there are potential consequences to doing so. You'll need to balance bringing characters with you to make combat and gathering resources easier against the condition of those characters.
Combat may also have different goals based on the context of what is happening. A lot of the random encounters will be with animals. These animals care more about their survival, and will run from combat if they're wounded or feel they're outmatched. They can be a great source of crafting materials and trade goods, but allowing animals to flee can mean taking damage without getting any experience or loot. Spirits are more aggressive and won't flee, but fighting them (especially at night) can be more dangerous than the rewards are worth. Especially when you're on a hunt, it may be worth fleeing from combat yourself in order to preserve your resources (though fleeing too often will lead to not leveling up enough to win more difficult fights).
Story fights come in two flavors - fights that can't be fled from, and fights where the goal is to capture your opponent rather than kill them. There might be some overlap in this fights depending on the situation, but for the sake of the demo, they're two different things. Fights that can't be fled from are pretty straightforward - either you kill your opponent, or your opponent kills you. Fights where you're intended to capture your opponent allow you to end combat by inflicting the Capture status on your enemy. Killing your enemy is still possible in these fights, but this can result in failed quests and permanently removed characters.
I would've liked to talk more about the core day/night and condition systems this week, but truth be told, those systems are still being developed and changing as a result of that development. If those systems get complete, I'll talk about them next week, otherwise I'll go over the crafting systems.
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