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rottenshotgungames · 1 month

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I’ve spent three years working on a game about motion

Footfall Devlog 1

It’s really hard for me to talk about my games. It’s even harder to talk about something I’ve been keeping so close to my chest for so long, but it’s time to do so.

This Devlog will be covering the basics of what Footfall is and the first few challenges of making a game so heavily inspired by immersive sims.

So, without further ado:

What is Footfall?

Footfall is an occult-industrial stealth-action rpg inspired by Dishonored, Assassin’s Creed, and Bloodborne. It aims to emulate the systemic ecosystem and emergent gameplay of immersive sims, and particularly the fast, creative, movement-centric gameplay of Dishonored.

You play as Gifted of the Watchman, the god of stories and action. You are functional demigods, arcane in nature and forever part of a great cosmic play of chaos and change.

Some basics about how the game is played before going forward:

You get 3 Action Points at the beginning of your turn, each action point representing a period of 2 seconds.

Movement is measured in ~3 foot increments labeled "Strides." These are about the average length of a walking stride, and tend to be measured with one's arm.

You get powers which move you and others in interesting and unique ways (e.g. teleporting, creating portals, time manipulation, etc.)

Designing a Tabletop ImSim: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Physics Engine

This game is, first and foremost, a stealth-action game, as such one specific thing was very important to get right: movement. My most important design goal, from the beginning, was to create interesting systems that interact in cool ways, particularly in regards to movement (otherwise, the stealth would just be boring and the action wouldn’t be bombastic enough). Generally speaking, there are a few ways to do movement in TTRPGs:

Narrative abstraction (PBtAs). The strength of this one lies in its lack of necessity of maps, which is not a strength particularly necessary for a game where movement mechanics are a core pillar.

Landmark-defined zones (ALIEN RPG and Celestial Bodies). This option’s strength also lies in its abstraction. You can have tactical combat and actual movement mechanics, but you don’t need codified distances (just a big rock that tells you where you are).

Short grid-based movement based on character stats (Tactics RPGs like Fire Emblem). The strength here is in the tactical importance of moving even one tile. Moving *feels* important because you get to do so little of it in one round, and it makes each tile moved feel like a long distance.

Simplified but simulatory grid-based movement (D&D). The strength of this system is, generally speaking, how thorough yet digestible it is. You’re given jump mechanics, falling mechanics, running mechanics, and they’re all simple enough that you can (usually) remember how they work without opening the book. The issue is that they don’t tend to be very interactive—“Yay, I can jump across a 10-foot gap without that impacting anything other than my positioning. Yay.”

Without beating around the bush, none of these options appealed to me for this project. Option 4 came the closest, but the issue with it is the same as with all of them: these movement systems tend to be very . . . “confined” to only affecting positioning, whether narratively or tactically. I pretty quickly realized that I had one option in front of me, make something I had never seen before:

5. A tabletop physics engine.

First thing’s first, I laid out a few key goals for my physics engine:

Strive for playability, not accuracy. People aren't computers, I don't want you to have to perform complex calculations constantly (unless you want to and therefore choose to).

Interactivity and impact. Even if those decisions aren't codified in the physics engine itself, I want the physics to inform multiple gameplay decisions through its interactions with other systems.

Flexibility of simulation. This is a physics engine, if it breaks when someone tries to jump (which it won't) then it's not working very well, is it? People should be able to toy around with it and get cool interactions out of it without it suddenly turning into a hell of, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DRIVING A CAR KILLS ME???"

Pretty simple stuff altogether, right? . . . right?

Alright, so what went wrong the first time? Well, I took the last point too far, to the point that I shirked the golden rule: "Strive for Playability, not Accuracy." It would be impossible to accurately model how gravity works in real life without a single round of physics-heavy combat taking 4 hours, which may be your jam but definitely isn't mine. The first version of the physics engine included such awful rules as:

Ground acceleration to model running - "If you move in a direction using 1 action point, and continue moving in the same direction with the following action point you begin to sprint. Your sprint will continue as long as you keep following up one movement with another in the same direction. Your movement speed is considered to be double its base amount and any attacks made with a bow or powder arm that target you have a minor disadvantage to hit if your last action point on your turn was spent sprinting." This was just . . . way too confusing and difficult to track, to the point that it actively disincentivized going fast.

Just straight up incorrect gravitational-acceleration math - It's still not wholly accurate, but I tried for way too long to make it wholly accurate.

An attempt to model fall-damage based upon Momentum - People accelerate downward faster than most people think they do. You will fall about 96 feet (over 29 meters) in a matter of 2 seconds. 1 Action Point. Yeah, there's just no calculating fall damage without relying solely on distance or some over-complicated math that still relies on distance.

Listed out, specific momentums that add damage to your strikes - "When an object or creature lands a strike while in motion, the energy imparted onto their target deals additional damage. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 24 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d4 of damage on your strike. If you have a momentum equal to or greater than 48 feet per Action Point before making an attack with a melee weapon, you deal an additional d8 of damage on your strike instead. If you have a momentum equal to . . ." God, this was so stupid of me. It's a really simple formula now: "When making an attack, for each 4 Strides per Action Point of Momentum a creature has in the direction of their target (if the target is in some combination of directions, such as Forward and Left, use the higher of the two) they deal an additional point of damage."

There were more, but it's really not worth going on and on.

Upon revising the physics engine, which was part of a whole system overhaul in the year of our lord 2022, I had one goal: "Simplify the math without simplifying the impact." Which, as you can probably tell from the second to last bullet of the prior list, I did.

The physics engine, as it is, is actually quite simple in practice. You can read the whole thing if you decide to grab the free playtest (which will be releasing soon, just have to finish up some final adjustments and get some art in), but for now I present to you . . .

The Footfall Physics Engine Quick Reference

Momentum: Strides moved in a direction since the beginning of your last Action. Momentum is directional (Forward, Backward, Left, Right, Up, Down). You may change facing at the beginning of an Action. Changing facing mid-air costs an Action Point. Move in the direction of and Strides equal to Momentum when in the air.

Gravity: When not standing on solid ground, you fall. Creatures gain 32 Strides of Downward Momentum at the beginning of each Action Point spent falling. Gifted may choose to halve this to 16 Strides.

Concussive Force: +1 Damage on attacks for each 4 Strides of Momentum in direction of Target. When hit by an object, damage die = +1 die size per 7 Strides of Momentum (1d2 at 7, 1d20 at 42). Throwing an object increases its Momentum by 21 Strides.

Fall Damage: When you hit the ground, damage die = +1 die size per 4 Strides fallen (1d2 at 4, 1d20 at 24). +1d20 for each 4 Strides beyond 24. Gifted falling at 16 Stride Gravity cannot take more than 1d20 Fall Damage.

Wall Damage: When you hit a wall, damage die = +1 die size for each 5 Strides of Momentum beyond 9 (1d2 damage at 9, 1d4 at 14). If damage die > d20, add a new die and start over.

I'm actually really proud of this physics engine. So far, players have LOVED playing around with it, and even some fairly math-dense people understood it after looking at the powers section for a little bit. I can't say for certain if I've accomplished all of my goals, and public playtesting may prove that it needs simplified further, but the successes I've had surrounding the physics engine are what told me that taking the effort to design Footfall wasn't a fool's errand. People used to tell me that movement is boring, it's just the thing you have to do to get to the fun stuff; and I feel as though I've proven it can be interesting, digestible, and—above all-else—fun.

It's fun to move yourself forward multiple strides using a power, then launch yourself into the air where you can soar across the battlefield and directly into a specific foe for increased damage. It's fun to have your buddy sit in a momentum-generation-machine constructed with two vertically aligned portals that triple her downward momentum each time she passes through, then watch as she swaps spots and momentums with a giant enemy monster, which you promptly send hurtling into a wall at 18x terminal velocity with your portals. Honestly, it's just fucking cool.

I'm so excited for people to get their hands on it.

Conclusion

Honestly, I have no idea what design lesson to leave you with. The best I can say is this: Fuck the haters. If you have an idea, and you really believe in that idea, follow through. Anything is possible given some time, planning, reflection, and a willingness to revise.

If you think something would be cool, and nobody's made it yet? Make it. Do it, right now. You can, I'm proof. It's gonna be great, I know it.

I believe in you.

Self Promotion

Welp, it's that time again folks. If you wanna check out my other games, and get updated when the Footfall free playtest goes live, follow me in Itch.io! If you want more devlogs, and more rpg design talk, follow me here or on twitter.

You really can't go wrong either way.

#footfall rpg #game design #indie ttrpg #tabletop #ttrpg #ttrpg community #tabletop games #role playing games #rpg #dishonored #stealth #i do not recommend making a physics engine in a tabletop format #this is not a normal thing to do please dont be me

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