Non-Combat Gaming - How to Make Social Mechanics Fun - Extra Credits

bg3 did it well enough i feel but they stole it from dnd so idk of that counts xD

I'm an amateur game dev who's been fishing around for just this kind of project and between starting and finishing this video I think I accidentally authored the first draft of a design doc.

So thank you guys for that. you get an instant like and sun.

In 2023, it’s crazy to think these guys played New Vegas and thought Fallout 3 was better. Maybe it was still bugged to oblivion idk.

Disco Elysium fans sound off!

Management games are generally peaceful. Some like the Settlers series has a combat mechanic tacked on, but a lot are about creating a system of production, services or logistics that maintains an equilibrium.

Adventure games sometimes had more or less slapstick combat mechanics, but they were about telling stories or at least silly jokes about singing pirates. And sitting there trying to combine rubber duck with band-aid.

The problem with non-combat reduced to skill-checks is it simply turns it into a shittier combat, because you don't have any real options. You use the highest skill or the best argument and that's it. I'd love some good non-combat non-skill roll mechanics.

I think that since this video came out, there have been a few more non-combat based games coming out. My favorite is subnautica, a survival open-world game where you crash land on an alien planet that you can explore, but the best part of it that has to do with this topic, is that while there are huge creatures that try to eat you, you really can't do anything about them besides run for your life! the only weapon you have is a small survival knife, and it's more for collecting resources than anything else. and even if you DO manage to kill them, you really don't get anything for doing so. not even a death animation, so it's not even fun to try to kill them.

I recently played a good phone game about arguments called devil's attorney

I want to make a game where you search for treasure and then use that treasure to make jewelry or fill a museum

I looked at my games collection as per your suggestion
73 Games were combat games or featured at least a fair bit of combat
76 Games did not have combat (or only had tiiiny amounts)
Pretty interesting!

Fallout New Vegas doesn't live up to Fallout 3?! It's 100 times better!

This is just dnd

y'know, finally making that ultra-hard dish in bloxburg or at last obtaining that one brick in lego games is kinda hard to describe levels of good

man if you need to invite a friend in a game, you really need a life

Board games are great example of non-combat game.
For example, Agricola, Brass, Dominion. These game don't have combat elements, but still fun.

Looking back on this one, using the visual of Fallout: New Vegas as an example of a disappointing sequel has aged quite poorly partially because as they age, New Vegas has aged far better than Fallout 3, but also because Fallout: New Vegas utilizes it's skill tree in such a way that you can avoid battle much of the time using speech, barter, medicine skill and a variety of other ways depending on the situation.

If you take a combat game and change the aesthetics in any way, wouldn't it still be a combat game? In Echo Bazaar, it's either a combat game or a non-combat game. There is no choice whether to make it about combat or non-combat because it's always the same gameplay: stat checks against a dialog choice. With the same gameplay, either fighting off a group of rats isn't combat or getting information from an innkeeper is, no exceptions.

The problem is that you can't just change the aesthetics and call it a day, because the mechanics still have you performing some sort of combat. The beauty of non-combat games is that you can make something as engaging as non-combat scenarios without resorting to combat.

Like Kirby games are generally combat games, and the Kirby series is generally a very good platforming series. By contrast, Getting Over It is a platforming game without combat that's engaging because your character is actively hard to control. Getting Over It wouldn't be the same experience if you had to balance the wonky controls with combat encounters, and is better off without it.

There's also the issue of emphasis. If a game provides primarily a non-combat experience, but has combat as a secondary aspect of it, does it still qualify as a combat game? I love Hollow Knight, and its primary gameplay loop is about exploring the rich world of Hallownest. If the game is mostly about exploration with combat as a secondary feature, does it still qualify as a combat game? What about Yoku's Island Express, whose only combat is limited to a handful of boss fights and otherwise has tons of exploration? What about The Messenger, which has a lot of exploration elements but seems more focused on combat? These games are all great, but how do you determine what is or isn't a combat game when many games provide experiences beyond combat?

I think the best non-combat games are those where the mechanics are built from the ground up to fit in a non-combat system. Puzzle games are very good at this, as most of the puzzle games I've played explicitly don't have combat mechanics because they produce intellectual challenges. Detective games like Subsurface Circular and Return of the Obra Dinn are fairly similar, as long as you're not confronting a suspect (or at least a living suspect in Obra Dinn). Platformers can do this too if the movement is challenging enough, as well as strategy games if the strategies revolve around gaining an advantage instead of harming an enemy. There are a lot of ways to make a non-combat game, but it's really hard to do if you take traditional sources of inspiration in games.

100% want to make a turn based card game focused on philosophical debate. You could base your deck builds on different tactics: presuppositionalism, empiricism, and classical apologetical could be a few deck builds. Then base the buddy constitutions about adding randomized factors into the debate based on another set of cards. I think this could really work!

John 3.16-21

Actually I want a game where you beat the fuck out of people with speech bubbles

Make a shape. Make it explode particles on click. Make it disappear after a set number of clicks. Bang. The brain sees killing.

Disco Elysium

Echo bazaar...

New Vegas not living up to Fallout 3? My ears must be deceiving me

A battle based conversation game?
Oh sir, do i have a gane for you

List of games I can think of that I played
Ace attorney
Animal crossing
Dating sims in general
Untitled goose game
Degrees of lewdity
Danganronpa
Among us (if you're an innocent crewmate)
Games I haven't played but probably apply
Minecraft
Rocket league
Sports games

Super-efffectiving



XD

99% of comments are just
ACE ATTORNEY WHERE IS MY BOYE PHRONIX WRONG

There are plenty of city/base builders without combat and they existed for decades now! Also there are puzzle and walking/exploration games, adventure games without combat or even entrepreneur games or physics games. Even hunting, fishing or driving games are not excaly about combat.

Dating sims, you're describing dating sims

if you like action games building and everything check minecraft

We have non-combat gaming, it's called Facebook.

Oxenfree is such a game. Good one too!

games, what are those?

One word:






Danganronpa

I feel like a lot of what you just described is undertale in a nutshell. wow

So that's why the game characters is green. Took me too many years to realize XD

Dealing with social situations in multiplayer survival games is great too. You can get some cannon fodder, allies or talk your way out of a combat encounter depending on what BS you can make up in the moment.

I got one example it’s called Oh...Sir, it is a game where you insult the other player and who ever loses confesses something. Different characters are sensitive different things. With bars on the to of there heads showing how many more insults they can take. Each turn you put together a sentence and you see how much mental damage you do to them.

The problem with games that include social skills (your 'debating' game, for example) is in declaring a winner. We can have moderators (or plain old people) who play the role of deciding the winner but will someone be that person. And even after 8 years, I'm pretty sure we are yet to create a software that can do this task.
[I guess this makes the games again conflict based but so many of their daily activities are. And in this you have to use subtleties & wordplays and stuff that are rarely perfect in an usual combat game]

I used JRPG-stlye "combat" mechanics for my dating sim game.

I really want a game where you can just ask the souls of the damned to kindly not attack you.

"super effective-ing" I would agree that "super effective-ing" is described as combat

So danganronpa

(Proceeds to spend 6 minutes and 51 seconds talking about visual novels without talking about visual novels)

"Super Effectiving"
-Dan 2012

SWTOR and the first two fallout games dialogue and social convos were actually the best parts of each games. In fallout you could be a fast talking swindler who manipulted the speech system to get results. Or be a goody two shoes or rambo not even bothering with dialogue. In swtor ou had so many different options to roleplay with engaging dialogue for your character

It could also be because I can’t pick up a minigun as a heavy weight Russian man and gun down hundreds of enemies while shrugging off bullets like a tank so being in adrenaline filled combat situations I can’t normally be in is kinda fun.

I thought katana zero had a great dialogue system