I participated in a game jam recently (I’ve always wanted to learn how to code games) and it was a lot of fun. The process of making my game got me thinking about what a videogame based on Old-school rpg principles might look like. RPGs like 5e have lots of videogame counter parts with high-powered characters with lots of cool abilities, but its hard to find games with that old school vibe.
If you had to design a videogame that used OSR principles what features would you implement? What do you gain with the videogame medium and how could you leverage that? I ask this out of curiosity, and also for selfish reasons because I’m looking for some game dev inspiration.
Of the top of my head:
- Detailed resource management (Torches, rations, etc)
- Extensive travel procedures. You could make some really complicated dungeon turns because the computer can handle it.
- Morale rules for monsters. Barely any games give you the option to talk with monsters or have monsters that don’t fight to the death.
- Retainers and henchmen.
- I’d really like to see some sort of interesting mechanics for traps. Not sure what that might look like…