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[JasonPickering]

I am using flash develop with Chevy Ray's flashpunk engine.

[PowRTocH]

Sort of not related to this thread that much but I really like it in games where you're given a chance to have the battle play out automatically. Like in Rome Total War you have that option (although you'll always do better properly commanding your units unless you're bad but it saves you like ~20-30 minutes), or in Etrian Odyssey you can just press L to speed through battles just auto-attacking. Especially if you have random battles it's really hard to muster a fuck if you can beat the enemies easily just by virtue of your stats alone, and it's always annoying in games where the battles are too slow/take too long and you just want to move forward.

[TaintedFork]

I think Radiant Historia on the DS had a very interesting and unique battle system.

Basically, your enemies are laid out on a 3x3 grid (your party is not). Various attacks can move the enemies around on the grid, so you can push them back a tile, move them to the left/right, etc. When you attack, you pick a tile you wish to attack rather than an enemy. So if there are 2 enemies on a specific tile on the grid you will hit them both.

I think also your attacks do more damage depending on how many enemies you hit.

This adds an additional layer of strategy. The moves that push the enemies around tend to be weak, but you may be able to do more damage overall by using them wisely.

Another thing you can do (IIRC) is switch your turn with the turn of an enemy/party member. This encourages you to execute combos and use the grid to your advantage.

The only problem I see with this system is how it would probably lose its appeal during boss fights. I haven't actually played the game, so I can't say for sure.

[LuisAnton]

I'm working on a game where fighting is reduced to deciding when to attack, defend or use a special ability. Every action tires you out, so you must choose carefully what to do while waiting to recover. It's fast, though.

You can't control your character's movement, that's part of the AI. That is, each character moves in a certain way according to its nature, and you must cope with that! Some walk directly towards the enemy, some are able to move around him, some stay in close range... Those who are slow may have strong ranged or melee attacks, or an special ability that freezes their enemies. Those who fly are fast, but may be slow or weak to certain abilities.

We are still polishing it, but we feel it may work as a simplified and reflex-based street fighter like mechanic.

[SundownKid]

The only problem I see with this system is how it would probably lose its appeal during boss fights. I haven't actually played the game, so I can't say for sure.

I played through the entire game, and the battle system has good ideas but is seriously flawed. That's not to say it wasn't fun, since typical battle systems don't even have any "push and pull" and still manage to be fun. The turn switching works fine, and is a good idea. However, here are the problems:

1) It's useless for bosses. Large bosses take up the entire area and there's no point in doing anything but beating them to to death. It works well for medium enemies, though, since you can actually attack a bunch of smaller enemies by attacking a larger enemy who is on top of them.

2) Your party has no grid. It would have been interesting if the enemy could use similar tactics on your party, and you could move them around every turn, like a turn-based Mega Man Battle Network, in order to defend or attack. Unfortunately, they chose the route of making the enemies harder and locking the player into a single row.

3) The combo system is under-utilized. Only at the endgame did I realize that using a certain attack that hit a bunch of times could boost the power of super attacks by huge amounts. However, most skills barely hit more than once or twice.

Unrelated

The Last Remnant has an awesome squad-based battle system. It was lambasted by some critics, but I think it's great fun. Someone needs to make a game with a similar system.

[njm1992]

Remembered another battle system.

This one is from Live A Live (SNES), a strange jrpg about several different main characters across time and you get to play each of their stories. Anyways, A battle example:

(skip to 0:25)

It seemed inspired by chess

[TacoBell_Lord]

Currently designing a battle system based on "Final Fantasy Tactics", "Disgaea" & Chess. Goal is to make the units more "Class" oriented, with their actions can only be executed only through their allies actions; from moving to fighting

(i.e 2 units can't move unless the "Witch" unit has moved or the only way for the "Troll" unit can attack is to gain points, where the "Orge" unit can gain for her by destroying an opposing unit)

Here, I wanted to boast Strategy, & have the player think about what units can efficiently work together than what has the highest attack power or what Job they are (focus less on RPG-elements & core Strategy)

(Also, kudos to the dope ideas I seen on this thread)