Age of Decadence Interview

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Written by BuckGB on March 2nd, 2009

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R: Your decision to go with a turn-based combat engine is likely to sit awkwardly with some newcomers to a genre that has largely merged with the real-time action crowd. Are you aiming this specifically at lovers of a particular breed of RPGs? Or is it just a case, again, of you making the sort of game you want to play? You certainly seem somewhat dismissive of real-time in the aforementioned article.

VDW: The game is turn-based because we like turn-based combat and aren't overly crazy about its real-time cousin, which - in my opinion - is inferior to turn-based in nearly every aspect but cinematics, and thus is absolutely unnecessary in a role-playing game.

Turn-based gameplay is about thinking, considering your options, and using tactical advantages. Real-time gameplay is about clicking really, really fast. The fact that developers add pause to real-time combat when they want to add a bit more depth to it should tell you everything you need to know.

As for the awkwardness, I beg to differ. Civilization, one of the most popular and venerable series, is and always was turn-based. I don't see newcomers being confused by its complicated mechanics. 2008's King's Bounty, a tactical turn-based game with role-playing elements, was very well received and even got several Game of the Year awards. Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil, a turn-based DnD game, was the best selling Atari RPG in 2004 and the second best selling PC game, losing only to Unreal Tournament, which is quite an achievement for an isometric RPG.

The only problem with turn-based combat is that the casual market finds real time combat and pretty cinematics associated with it more appealing and easier to get into it, and since the publishers are willing to do whatever it takes to get a piece of the casual market. More room for indie developers.

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