Memoria Misera

Memoria Misera is a prototype for a tactics roguelite game. This game is based on a blog about making a tactics game in Unity.

Following the blog was my first foray into making games. After hitting a technical barrier and wanting to learn more, I used the game to apply to Futuregames.

After 1.5 years of study, I re-approached working on the game for the first time as part of a system design course with Karoline Blume, with the following goals:

Push myself to see how much I'd progressed on a technical level
Practice working in and expanding on an established technical framework
Implement character progression & AI

This page is a work in progress :)

Contents

Roles: Solo Developer

Timeframe: 1.5 weeks

Engine: Unity

Tools: Unity, GitHub, C#

Genre: Tactics RPG

Then VS Now

Modifying Angelscript

Level Tools

Then vs. Now

Then

The following video is representative of the game as it was when I applied to Futuregames. The features shown are straight from the blog articles.

Basic movement (three types, via player input only)
Tool for making levels
Dialogue cutscenes

Determined to improve and implement my ideas and wanting to showcase what I can accomplish on my own, I spent 1.5 weeks of Karoline's system design course to implement character progression, as well as simple AI and random rewards.

The following video shows the additions I was able to make during that time.

Note: For the sake of brevity, the beginning section of this video is sped up.

Implementations in Brief

A "weapon system" for character progression
Expanded state machine
Simple utility AI
Random weapon drops using a factory

Weapon System

The main character can equip two weapons, a "main" weapon and a "sub" weapon, of various types. The main weapon's type defines the set of abilities the character can use, and the sub weapon's type modifies those abilities based on its own properties.

Effectively, different combinations of weapon types represent different class or power fantasies of RPGs.

The player can also swap their weapon positions during their turn, increasing the amount of tactical options by flipping the ability set they have access to.

This system can be scaled with the introduction of new weapon types, with each new type adding a large amount of player options.

Weapons & Character Progression

The main components attached to character progression here are weapon experience gain and unlocking abilities at higher weapon levels.

When the player attacks or uses an ability, they:

Gain +2 exp for their equipped main weapon type
Gain +1 exp for their equipped sub weapon type

This additional gain for the sub weapon type is a key component in that

it rewards the player for experimenting with various weapon types
it removes friction in transitioning to a new weapon type by lessening the overall grind to reach maximum level

I wanted to keep the focus on the fun of using different weapon type combinations rather than the grind. The player is able to simply engage with the mechanics and play.

Experience gain follows a linear scale, with a small jump between 9 & 10 to increase the sense of achievement upon reaching maximum level.

As the player gains levels with a weapon type, they gain access to more abilities for that weapon type.

Each weapon type has:

Five passive abilities
- 1 core passive
- 3 statistical passives (power, speed, etc.)
- 1 capstone passive
Five active abilities
- 1 core active
- 3 general actives
- 1 capstone active

The cores define a playstyle while capstones, and to a lesser extent the general actives, give powerful effects that support that playstyle. For example, take the dagger:

The pillar for the dagger is speed. I gave it effects that allow for additional movement and weaker, multi-hit attacks.

However, when equipped with a wand...

Three abilities drastically change. The pillar of the dagger, speed, is maintained while adding the additional magical flair of the wand.