Action-Crafting
Final thesis project for my graduate game workshop course.
We sought out to find alternative uses for crafting in games. We researched a number of different games until finally deciding to prototype a system that lets users pre-craft their actions for use in battle. We've seen similar systems in some other games, but we were specifically interested in allowing the player to craft branchable moves so that they could adjust their tactics mid-attack.
While we didn't get a chance to implement this in a game with goals, we see the player being able to either swipe or press 1-4 buttons to choose their move. For example, they may prepare for a hard swing, but they could branch, and if they press B before the swing goes down on the opponent, they could go into a defensive stance, or if the press A they could stab with a dagger in their other hand.
We saw this as a simple interface to build complex combat, anticipating that people may form "fighting styles". Of course, this may not work out and people may find optimal moves that make no sense. Either way, it was a fun experiment and we researched a number of issues in other games. The paper isn't included here, but I'm happy to discuss some of our findings in private!