Editor's note: Rob talks with the designer behind the upcoming Star Sentinel Tactics about the game and how it seeks to refine the turn-based tactical-squad genre. As a player who enjoys the more deliberative pace of turn-based games, this sounds intriguing to me. -Jason
Call me hopelessly behind the times, but I enjoy well-designed turn-based tactical-squad games. The recent analysis of turn-based and real-time engines from Soren Johnson (Civilization 3 and Civilization 4, Spore) argued that some games and genres are more suited to one mechanic or the other, and I believe that tactical squad games are better served by a turn-based system.
This is why I’m interested in the discovery of indie game Star Sentinel Tactics. Though missing the “crunchy real-time strategic shell” of X-COM, Star Sentinel Tactics promises to deliver the “gooey turn-based tactical core.”
SST is a turn-based tactical squad game where the player takes control of a five-member team against a merciless alien menace. Tactical missions are set to be narrative-driven and promise to keep players engaged through a dynamic mission structure. The enemy A.I. also promises to make use of the same advanced tactics another player would. Could SST be the return to this subgenre that fans have always hoped for?
Designed and programmed by a team of one, SST is a labor of love for indie developer Phil Ings. I sat down (virtually) with Ings to discuss the game.
Rob Savillo: SST is clearly inspired by other tactical-squad games like Laser Squad, X-COM, and Jagged Alliance. How will SST differentiate itself from such well regarded titles?
Phil Ings: The main thing which makes SST stand out from the classic tactical games of the past is the dynamic mission structure. In the past, tactical games tended to just drop players into a mission and wait for them to finish.
In SST, objectives can change on the fly. New objectives or challenges may be thrown at players halfway through a mission. For instance, players might start a mission trying to rescue a colleague. Upon finding the colleague, he reveals that someone else in greater danger. But before players can accomplish their new objective, the path is blocked off by the arrival of enemy reinforcements. This is just one of the ways in which I've tried to reinvigorate a genre that isn't exactly known for a sense of excitement and dynamism by those unfamiliar with similar games.
I've also added a new take on the old ways of having units take action during the opponent's turn. SST provides “passive attack” and “passive defense” as tactical options during the enemy turn phase.
Selecting passive defense just means that players allocate all remaining action points to defense, which means that successful enemy attacks will do less damage.
Passive attack is similar to the old notion of “opportunity fire,” which is triggered by any enemy action. Each mechanic allows players to set bigger and better ambushes, which can lead to explosive battles.
The main focus throughout development has been on making the genre more exciting and streamlined without losing any of the integral elements that make turn-based combat so tactical.
Players can skip cut-scenes, enable fast movement to make units carry out orders much quicker, and -- most importantly -- are no longer forced to stare at a blank screen during the opponent's turn. I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how I've managed to inject a sense of pace and thrill into turn-based combat.
RS: What inspired you to stick with a turn-based system as opposed to adopting real-time with pause, a system favored by more recent tactical squad games like the UFO series or Freedom Force?
PI: Real time with a pause is the complete antithesis of turn-based combat. Perhaps I'm just a cynical old fossil in this regard, but none of the recent real-time UFO games held my interest at all. I think those games correctly identified the problems inherent in a turn-based system, but they dropped the ball with the solution.
I agree with those developers that turn-based tactical games can be boring -- through the use of static mission structures, tiresome random-generated missions, and long wait times for the enemy’s turn -- but making them real-time destroys everything I love about the genre. You might just as well have a play-by-e-mail first-person shooter.
RS: Other turn-based tactical squad games used some role-playing-game mechanics, like attribute leveling and acquisition of new gear. Will SST adopt either?
PI: I did toy with some RPG mechanics fairly early in development, but I felt that they got in the way of the tactical balance of the game. RPG mechanics can create a “grind mentality.”
Instead of studying the battlefield or trying out new tactical approaches and new weapon/unit combinations, players are tempted to level up on easy missions so that the more advanced missions no longer present a tactical challenge. In essence, I don't want SST to become another grindfest.
Finding new gear, on the other hand, is a recurring theme in SST. Players won’t be sent out from HQ to a mission and come home when it's finished. The entire campaign could be viewed as one long mission -- players can't go back to the armory to grab new weapons or stop by a 24-hour weapon mart to equip their squad with new gear.
Instead, players will be looking to retrieve weapons from fallen opponents and search around the various battlefields for any new equipment. Since enemies are a warlike gang, players will come across a varied range of new weaponry. Additionally, players will meet one or two allies who join the team and bring along some nifty new weapons, too.
RS: Many of the screenshots that I saw showed the entire five-person squad together. Will the game encourage players to break up the team for more advanced tactics?
PI: Absolutely. There's a real risk/reward scenario inherent in team structure. For example, players can use stealth -- a mechanic that plays a significant role -- to pin down an enemy squad and get a heavy-weapons specialist in behind them. On the other hand, players should be careful not to disperse their squad too thinly, which could leave them ill-prepared when a surprise firefight ensures.
Not only are players encouraged to split up their team, on some missions players will have no choice. Players may also have to tackle multiple objectives at once, which will open a whole new set of tactical challenges.
Knowing when and how to keep the team together or apart is also important because each team member has different strengths and weaknesses. Using the right person for the right task is an integral part of the tactical challenge.
RS: Part of the fun of games like X-COM and Silent Storm is the ability to open up new tactical options by shooting down a wall or leveling a building. Will SST provide fully destructible environments?
PI: Destructible environments were something I had to sacrifice in order to introduce the dynamic mission structure. If I let players destroy the environment, they might very well unknowingly destroy a mission critical item.
If the mission revolves around a set of reinforcements arriving in an elevator that has already been blown to bits by the player, it might just make the mission more difficult. If, on the other hand, the reinforcements were bringing the player a crucial item necessary to complete the mission, it would be extremely frustrating for players.
In the end, I decided to leave destructible environments out of the game and then possibly reintroduce them for modders. If the modding community for SST really takes off and people want destructible battlefields, that could be something that I'll add to game.
RS: Will SST have destructible elements instead, such as exploding barrels or other environmental items inconsequential to the narrative?
PI: It's funny you should ask that -- I spent most of yesterday going through all the missions in the game looking for more things to blow up! There will definitely be plenty of exploding barrels and such. The AI will also take advantage of these elements, especially so on the higher difficulty setting.
RS: Since SST will be narrative-driven, how will the game handle character death?
PI: In essence, none of your team is allowed to die partly because I want players to feel a sense of attachment to their team. I handle this in very much the same manner as Japanese RPGs do -- when a squad member loses all of his hit points, he becomes “crippled.” He’ll have minimal action points, be of no tactical use, and he’ll be a real burden on missions where players are required to get the entire team to a particular location.
One important distinction, though, is that he’s still alive and can take part in vital objectives or cut-scenes; however, if players let the all team members become crippled, it's game over.
RS: Will “crippled” effects carry over to new missions, or will all team members return in top shape?
PI: Everyone will be patched up and healthy again at the beginning of the next mission. There are some healing items available for midmission saves which players will need on the harder difficulty, too.
RS: Though fans of turn-based games are accustomed to wait times for the computer player, most other people find long wait times to be a deal-breaker. How does SST address the issue?
PI: Wait times for the A.I. turn have been completely eliminated. It's actually a very simple theory, although it certainly wasn't simple to program. Every single action the A.I. can take has been broken down into a series of miniactions.
From the player’s perspective, the only A.I. actions they need to know about are when an enemy crosses the player’s line of sight. Those fleeting moments when a unit appears from cover, and then ducks back into cover, are vital tactical information for the player to use.
The game analyzes any move the A.I. makes and skips all actions the player-controlled units won't see. Players will only see enemy actions and will never be kept waiting behind an “enemy turn” screen.
RS: From screenshots, SST’s user interface has a lot of options similar to the original X-COM series. Will the game support hotkey assignments to make U.I. navigation faster?
PI: I added this recently after a few testers made the suggestion. The goal was always to keep the user interface as streamlined and accessible as possible, so anything which helps in that regard is something I want to include. I still suspect that most people are going to use the mouse controls, but the keyboard will be there for players who prefer hotkeys.
RS: Will players be able to customize hotkey assignments?
PI: Yes. I've tried to make most things user-configurable. Apart from the obvious graphics and sound settings, players will be able to set their own keyboard controls as well as quite a lot of game options, like movement speed and which overlays are shown.
RS: How extensive can players expect SST’s modding support to be? Will they, for example, be able to build a strategic layer connecting the tactical missions in lieu of the story?
PI: They'll be able to change just about everything in the game. SST itself was technically written as a mod -- if the game does it, so can a modder.
That means modders can create their own campaigns and missions, which includes cut-scenes and scripted events. Modders can create their own units and weapons, which includes custom models, animations, shaders and textures. Modders can even write their own A.I. scripts for the units if they’re comfortable with some simple Lua scripting.
A complete set of tools will also ship with the game, which means that modders can use the same tool set I did to create SST -- the particle editor, the level editor, and so forth. From these tools alone, modders can create a lot of new content without any scripting knowledge at all.
At the moment, there is no strategic layer because it wouldn't work with the dynamic mission structure or the narrative of the main game. A strategic layer could definitely work for mods or DLC, but I'm waiting to see what features people want me to add.
There are a lot of ways I could add to the game, and I don't want to rush into something that appeals to me only to find out that most players want something completely different.
RS: Can players expect future support for SST in the form of patches and extra content?
PI: Absolutely. I have a couple of mods in mind that I'd like to make, both of which will require some new features for modders which will benefit the community. Beyond that, it's going to come down to me delivering what the community wants. If people want more single-player content, I'll focus on that. If they want more features for modders, I'll spend most of my time there instead.
One of the great benefits of being an independent developer is that you get to listen and interact with your customers, so the SST community’s development will be directed by players.
RS: What form of DRM will SST implement, or will the game ship DRM-free?
PI: My aim is to be DRM-free on all channels. The only people I'm interested in are my legitimate customers, and I won't inconvenience them just to thumb my nose at a few pirates who would never have bought SST in the first place.
Fortunately, most of the big digital distribution networks are pretty generous in this regard and will let you ship without DRM. I suspect that I'm going to have my arm twisted when it comes to retail channels, though. Retail publishers invest a lot of money to get boxed copies into brick-and-mortar shops, so they feel entitled to protect their investment. I'll be pushing the case for no DRM at retail, too; we'll just have to see what happens.
RS: Where can gamers pick up a copy of SST?
PI: I'm a big fan of digital distribution, so I hope that people will be able to buy SST on any of their favorite networks. I'm getting a lot of messages from potential players asking if it's going to be on Steam or Impulse or whatever. The response has been encouraging so far, and I'm optimistic that it will be on the big four -- Steam, Impulse, GamersGate, and Direct2Drive -- at least.
I know some gamers still prefer to have a boxed copy -- as a player, I do, too -- so I'll be doing my best to get SST into all the major retail channels as well. I have been in discussion with some publishers, and I'm optimistic that we can reach an agreement.
Now that SST is almost complete, my main job is to make sure that people can get the game. If people want to see SST from a particular digital distributor or retail chain, they should contact either their preferred vendor or myself about the game.
Visit SST’s website for more information.
