What Makes Turn Based Games Enjoyable

Turn based games have seemed to take a back seat in popularity for the past few years in the game scene but that does not take away from the popular idea that they are one of the best single player lore games. They often include elements of tactics, strategy, RPG, fantasy and lots of lore. All the popular turn-based games have two things in common, interesting skill-based combat and strategic deep story telling. Some of these games could be recognized from the Sid Meiers series from the Divinity series to the Xcom and Total War series.

Turn based can get stale and boring to typical players that are more interested in flowy action combat that makes you feel more interactive. One of the biggest drawbacks of turn based combat is it’s easy to feel like you are pulled out of the game and put in a separate section in order to follow through with the fight. The wasteland series however does this terrifically by just have instances of combat in which while exploring the wasteland you often meet enemies sporadically and unexpectedly keeping you on edge. Additionally the lore in the game can often help make the combat that you end up interacting with more interesting, this is very prevalent in the Divinity and Final Fantasy series, where there’s even amazing cutscenes at times before really intense boss battles that really take turn based combat up a notch. Speaking of Final Fantasy, the style and flow of combat within the instance is important to keep a player impressed and engaged in whatever skills and weapons they use.

There are a couple of other key features that could be looked at to keeping a turn-based combat game enjoyable for a player. One of the biggest to note is keeping it complex since to many players turn based combat is simplifying it dramatically. You can keep the complexity high with variability in skills and emerging and unpredictable enemies. Clarity is also an important virtue here, making sure the player knows the successes and consequences of decisions. Finally, a balance between randomness and tactical approach availability key, the player should be able to top the chance of bad luck with enough skill but also always keeping them thinking with a sufficient number of tools available to them.