I need help in designing a fighting mechanic to go into a turn-based square tile game (I'm sorry I don't know the names of any games like it, although there are some). It will be in an isometric/3D view, and will need to be fought by avatars. I can't give too much away, as it is my design for a 4E4 entry. cheers for any help. to recap: i need to design a fighting system for a turn-based square tile game. thanks

Pretty vague, but understandably so. For research material, I recommend Tactics Ogre (SNES, available via emulator), Final Fantasy Tactics(PSX or Gameboy Advance), and Front Mission(4 games, SNES through PS2). A quick, free game like this is Tactics Arena Online, which I'm citing through www.AddictingGames.com. It has a lot of simple games, many of which are good examples of innovative design.

Basically, you've got all the options available in WarHammer 40k. Melee attacks, ranged attacks, area effects, you name it. If it's turn-based, then you won't have to worry about timing or anything like that. I like being able to choose a defensive maneuver, like in Tactics Ogre, as opposed to having your character automatically perform a given counter, like in the Final Fantasy Tactics series. Nothing worse than hitting your knight with a healing rod and having him counter-slash your white mage to death.

Cheers, I'll check those games out!

thanks

EDIT: I checked it out and that was what i was looking for, cheers alot for that!

How do they make the models in the Tactics Arena Online game?

Take a look at the old UFO series of games, sounds exactly like what your aiming for

thanks

You can add the Fallout and Jagged Alliance Series to that as well. Both are good examples of TB Isometric Combat systems. When not in combat both games allowed the player to move around without the need for movement points.

Check out some old SNES games called Fire Emblem and Bahamut Lagoon... they're both pretty good square-tile, turn-based tactics games. I think Fire Emblem has the superior system though. Fire Emblem 7 and 8 (and maybe 6) are on the Game Boy Advance, so they're fairly easy to find.