So I have never designed or made a game before, but I have this idea (definitely not an idea for a beginner) that I want to pursue and actually make it into a game, and I am also not sure if this is the correct place to ask here so I apologize if I am mistaken.

So in nearly every video game combat & violence play a vital role if not the basis of the game anyway, so I was thinking maybe the combat could limited or expensive, as in the sense of that if you actually used combat it would have consequences and unfavorable results which in turn would make combat an unfavorable choice or a last resort, which also opens up an array of options or methods such as stealth,diplomacy,crafting,etc to overcome a certain problem, or maybe combat could be set up as a goal where you actually have to use other non combat methods for sometime in order for the combat option to be unlocked for you.


What do you think about this,would you actually play a game like this?


And sorry for the beginner/he has no idea what's doing vibe

Your mechanic is used in most of the RPG:s (BG,System shock,Witcher) and Stealth FPS (Splinter cell, Thief, Hitman). These games allow you to rambo but the best rewards are given to those who take their time and solve the real problems usually without violence.

Persona, Way of the Samurai, and Sanitarium are more examples of games where the player chooses carefully between combat options and non-combat options. Sanitarium is an adventure game, while the others are more RPGs like Jooseppi lists.

Personally I like games where combat equates to hunting, rather than violence. Hunting monsters for crafting mats seems like an honorable career to me.

What do you think about this,would you actually play a game like this?

I think this can be applied in a scenario where the damage you sustain during combat encounters is permanent or at least has lasting effects: the odds of maiming an arm and becoming much less efficient from battle to battle brings you close and closer to death, forcing you to think cleverly about your chances.

I think if you've played games such as the first 2 Resident Evil, you'll see how survival horror ties a bit into this: puzzles net you resources which are in scarce supplies. Fighting hordes head-on is a terrible mistake. More often than not, you are short on bullets.

It is a different type of game, but it works well.

Persona, Way of the Samurai, and Sanitarium are more examples of games where the player chooses carefully between combat options and non-combat options. Sanitarium is an adventure game, while the others are more RPGs like Jooseppi lists.

Personally I like games where combat equates to hunting, rather than violence. Hunting monsters for crafting mats seems like an honorable career to me.

I thought about hunting too, but in a way that requires you to be stealthy or if you wanted to go head on you would have to utilize certain strategies and tools, such as utilizing traps or the environment in order to weaken your prey.

I think this can be applied in a scenario where the damage you sustain during combat encounters is permanent or at least has lasting effects: the odds of maiming an arm and becoming much less efficient from battle to battle brings you close and closer to death, forcing you to think cleverly about your chances.

I think if you've played games such as the first 2 Resident Evil, you'll see how survival horror ties a bit into this: puzzles net you resources which are in scarce supplies. Fighting hordes head-on is a terrible mistake. More often than not, you are short on bullets.

It is a different type of game, but it works well.

I actually like this idea, I was thinking maybe killing an enemy would have some psychological effects on the protagonist(like when your sanity drops down and the shadow monsters start to appear in don't starve or maybe even some subtler effects such as crafting taking more time to be done than the usual) but your idea seems realistic enough, and also puzzles netting you resources is pretty nice, it will force you to use your brain and solve puzzles even if you don't like them and even more it will force you to drop the idea of "rambo-ing" if you hate puzzles that much.

Strategy games have long used attritive combat and similar mechanics to create the long term risk vs. reward horizon. I'd look at some of the more unique games like King of Dragon's Pass for how they handle the concept of short term gain vs. long term - sometimes unseen or unexpected - consiquence. Everything from going to war more often makes your people DEMAND to go to war more often to reputation damage to plot devices that revolve around how warlike (or not warlike) you've been, with pros and cons on both being TOO war like and not warlike enough! A cool balancing act.

Not sure it matches exactly what you're going for, but the goal should be something like that - where a game in which you ALWAYS avoid combat when possible is interesting - a game where you SELECTIVELY engage is better.

Persona, Way of the Samurai, and Sanitarium are more examples of games where the player chooses carefully between combat options and non-combat options. Sanitarium is an adventure game, while the others are more RPGs like Jooseppi lists.

Personally I like games where combat equates to hunting, rather than violence. Hunting monsters for crafting mats seems like an honorable career to me.

I thought about hunting too, but in a way that requires you to be stealthy or if you wanted to go head on you would have to utilize certain strategies and tools, such as utilizing traps or the environment in order to weaken your prey.

Oh, have you played Tokyo Jungle? If not, go to youtube and watch someone playing through the tutorial, because the tutorials explain how stealth and the environment affect your hunting and escaping from bigger hunters. But traps would make a nice additional mechanic in a game where you have time to build them rather than being constantly on the edge of starvation or dying of toxicity like in Tokyo Jungle.

Strategy games have long used attritive combat and similar mechanics to create the long term risk vs. reward horizon. I'd look at some of the more unique games like King of Dragon's Pass for how they handle the concept of short term gain vs. long term - sometimes unseen or unexpected - consiquence. Everything from going to war more often makes your people DEMAND to go to war more often to reputation damage to plot devices that revolve around how warlike (or not warlike) you've been, with pros and cons on both being TOO war like and not warlike enough! A cool balancing act.

Not sure it matches exactly what you're going for, but the goal should be something like that - where a game in which you ALWAYS avoid combat when possible is interesting - a game where you SELECTIVELY engage is better.

This is actually very interesting, even though I am more for non combat solutions since they actually require more thinking that combat solutions, but I think this would be hard to execute on anything other than RTS games or something of the like( I might be wrong), and I was thinking about more of a survival type of game, nevertheless this balance would be quite challenging and quite entertaining.

Persona, Way of the Samurai, and Sanitarium are more examples of games where the player chooses carefully between combat options and non-combat options. Sanitarium is an adventure game, while the others are more RPGs like Jooseppi lists.

Personally I like games where combat equates to hunting, rather than violence. Hunting monsters for crafting mats seems like an honorable career to me.

I thought about hunting too, but in a way that requires you to be stealthy or if you wanted to go head on you would have to utilize certain strategies and tools, such as utilizing traps or the environment in order to weaken your prey.

Oh, have you played Tokyo Jungle? If not, go to youtube and watch someone playing through the tutorial, because the tutorials explain how stealth and the environment affect your hunting and escaping from bigger hunters. But traps would make a nice additional mechanic in a game where you have time to build them rather than being constantly on the edge of starvation or dying of toxicity like in Tokyo Jungle.

Traps would make a nice addition also a crafting system that would require you to practice a few times before actually making a functioning trap would be nice too, since you would have to collect enough ingredients, and I will check Tokyo jungle.


Thanks for the replies everyone they really helped

King of Dragon's Pass is a turn based strategy game with no combat control (you set up the tactic you plan on using and press go and get a result). So it at least works on one genre other than RTS :D

Anyway, it was more an example of the idea behind selection rather than "always optimal" approaches. :)