RE: Gamdev blog 7: Pointlessness
I think I'd have made some of the options from the last segment clear at the start. For instance, for the player, both attacking and moving are actions. I was under the impression that you move, and attack happens automatically on what is in the same space. So then if you could just move out of the space with the enemy, you're not losing anything?
(I also thought that when you enter a room, one side ends up dead, before you can move away, or something. Not sure why.)
I think the cleanest way to avoid the nonsense with "They move to room 1 from 2, I move from room 2 to 1, and we both miss one another!" is that often in such games first one side acts, then the other. If at the end of any side's action they are in the same spot, combat happens automatically. But if you don't want combat to happen automatically, there are two options here, depending on how much bigger you want the decision-tree to go. The first is automatic "attack of opportunity," and here the player might be the one landing them if the monster acts later. But that brings us back to the nonsense from before, so it can happen in one direction, if the monster moves first.
So what is the other option, and which is likely the monster's choice either way? The moment someone moves into another's space, the game "pauses." And now all sides get to pick a new action for their next one. I think this would work.
As for the player, there should be a decision for them to not keep running from monsters, but also a reason to do so that makes the choice of when to fight meaningful. Perhaps you can gather monsters together? Perhaps you can deal more total damage in such a scenario, or you get more rewards from say, a group 4 intensity fight than 4 intensity 1 fight? As you said, the decisions here should matter.
The game is completely turn based and no simultaneous. The "we miss each other" event can only happen if I decide that enemies decide their next move immediately after completing their previous one, thus deciding what to do based on an outdated board state.
The way the system works is every actor replenishes 1 energy every time the game loops over all the actors. When an actor has sufficient energy to make an action they want to do, they act, and lose the energy.
Currently, the cost of a move or an action (attack) is both 1, so every loop through all actors, every actor gets 1 energy and acts. I can change it, so the cost of different actions varies, both for enemies and for the player. In case of the player, they can choose whether to rest for more energy (up to a cap) or perform an action. In case of enemies, it's a bit trickier since the AI needs to accommodate the variance. Currently the AI is: If player is in the same room, attack, otherwise, get closer to the player.