battle setting pt.1: the concept for a new project expanding Table Setting

I began a tiny side project that I intend to finish this month. it will be a follow up to Table Setting and I'm in fact going to use the unity project as a basis, which will be an interesting test that I hadn't done before.

with practically the same size, Battle Setting is intended to further explore the ideas I had in Table Setting to give life points and little powers to pieces in tic tac toe, but to extend the tactical aspect, I want each piece to be more durable and stable. in Table Setting each piece lost constitution every turn, here I want them to lose it only when they get used.

the basic structure is that you begin the game choosing four pieces, amongst many you own, through drafting. during the match itself you only have these four pieces to use. each turn the player can choose a piece and move it somewhere else. the piece triggers its power again, but loses one life point.

the idea then is that you have to balance using the piece's powers with managing their life points, but being able to control the degradation of these pieces, unlike Table Setting where this is automatic, leading to a more impermanent game.

the powers will be really similar to Table Setting: giving life to itself, taking life from enemies or giving life to allies. so you have the possibility to potentially replenish the life of your pieces as they degrade with use. however, if a piece is bordered by two enemy pieces on opposite sides, it can't move. this is so you can't count on using a specific piece on a specific moment, simply developing a regular sequence of pieces to use. I hope this leads the player to have to take interesting decisions by improvisation.

the main objective is forming a line of three pieces, like Table Setting, but since pieces can be eliminated, losing two pieces will lead to automatic defeat.

I'm really excited to explore the drafting at the beggining. this would leave you to only use four pieces among a much bigger lot, but without being able to chose them at will, leading to potentially very different matches depending on the combination of pieces, and their powers, you have to use.

an aggressive set can be really good at eliminating the enemy pieces, but constantly losing life without being able to help. a defensive set can last a lot, probably aiming for a victory by forming a line. more conservative powers that only work on adjacent pieces would lead to a slower game with focus on positioning and manouvering. stronger powers with random targets would lead to faster more unpredictable matches. I'll see.