T3K #0 - Tactics Games Are Fun To Talk About!

Hi! If you're here you've stumbled across my blog for talking about various tabletop and tactics games. Welcome to Triangles, Tactics, and Tabletop, Kupo! ​

Over the past years through the pandemic I've reignited a lot of love for video games that I lost because university knocked the wind out of me. A major part of that was tactics and tabletop games! So this is a blog to talk design thoughts of tabletop systems and tactics video games I play.

So let's get to the focus of this blog, why it's named this, and a long dive into my history!

What's This Blog About?

My big plans for this blog can be summed up as follows

• Talk about tactics games I've recently played or played long ago that struck me with cool design choices
• Talk about certain design patterns and design challenges that come up in the tactics genre
• Explore the 'canon' of tactics games and see how they hold up (Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc.)
• Discuss tabletop games and notable systems I find really impactful as a collaborative experience
• Possibly discuss the process of creating my own grid-based tactics tabletop RPG
• Shout out indie tactics and tabletop games that I really think deserve more attention

So I hope you'll join me on this tactics adventure! Onward past the Read More!

'Triangles, Tactics, and Tabletop, Kupo!'

So why this name?

Triangles​--
Well what is a rock paper scissors triangle but the ultimate tactics game. The idea of a weapons triangle is front of mind whenever I think of tactics games. Fire Emblem was very foundational to my experience of tactics games over the years and honestly? Triangle Strategy has taken over my head as a top game ever very quickly so I really wanted to shout that out.

Tactics--
At its heart this blog is gonna talk a lot about tactics games! I'll get more into what I mean by that later in terms of games to cover.

Tabletop--
Tabletop games rule! I really enjoy seeing discussion on what the tabletop medium can aspire to be. I'm someone very passionate about pushing the medium to extend beyond the big system everybody automatically defaults too (check out NatTwentea!!!). 

Kupo--
Kupo.

No but seriously, the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance moogles have been my favorite design from any game period, let alone just tactics games. And in recent years FFTA has struck me at trying some really interesting game design choices that I will ardently defend. One day I'll write about Laws and Antilaws.

A Grand Archive of Sorta Playing Tactics Games

My initial history with tactics games was primarily appreciating the idea of the Fire Emblem games and especially their romhacks around late 2000s, early 2010s. Back in the days when Twitch.tv was Justin.tv there were a few streamers who played some of those extra hard romhacks so spent a lot of time watching them.

This was also at a time where Fire Emblem Awakening was years out and all other FE games were incredibly rare. Also, I was bad at navigating emulators and got computer viruses a couple times. That was embarrassing.

One of my earliest memories of GBA FE romhacks was a tank. That was extra weak to lances. Cause it was also a Valkyria Chronicles joke.

Sprinkled in there I lightly attempted to play both Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance around 2010 through various ports and virtual console. The FFTA moogles continue to be my favorite design from any game but alas, I was bad at them! So I bounced pretty quickly cause I turned to grinding as an easy answer and that was incredibly dull to me (which will be a whole thing I want to write about with middle-of-the-game EXP curve).

I rushed to unlock Calculator as early as possible. That grind was miserable.

Fast forward to 2013 and huzzah! Fire Emblem Awakening! The core loop of gameplay captured the impression I had of watching streams of older FE games and romhacks. And it had shipping! It was very approachable in the way the game eased in mechanics and common recruitment requirements, but also had an engaging difficulty curve!

This was also clear when I discovered the idea of fandom! A blessing and a curse. This was when I started really interacting with other fans about favorite characters. Around 2013 I still hadn't built up a confidence to draw fanart yet but I did appreciate every art of my sweet baby boy Donnel.

Just a sweet little farm boy.

After that, I sorta fizzled on Tactics games for a bit. University struck! Fire Emblem Fates came out right around when college hit me with lots of stress. I did not like Fire Emblem Fates, haha. And I completely missed Shadows of Valentia, so Fire Emblem was put on the backburner for a bit.

Then around 2018 my then college roommates introduced me to a lot of big tabletop board games like Betrayal At the House on the Hill and the Fallout board games. But most importantly they introduced me to actually playing tabletop RPGs like Dungeon & Dragons!

One of my first characters, Aver the Kobold. Imagine if Sasuke Uchiha was a lil dragon guy but still tragic.

That was my real first experience in collaborative storytelling which I really enjoyed. I would play various sessions in D&D 5E and would eventually try running a few campaigns in Inverse World, a supplement to the Dungeon World system, as well as Blades in the Dark. I really enjoyed running systems that encouraged that forward momentum in narrative but still had layers of tactical challenge to it.

Around 2019 I would move to also playing tabletop games through NatTwentea, an indie TTRPG group run by very cool friends Cecil & Rubin (check our their games on Itch.io here). I would end up playing in a bunch of sessions over the next years in their Persona, Fire Emblem systems and their original system Trail Between Sun and Stars.

Fast forward to 2021! I graduated from college! There was also.. still a global pandemic going on! So I joined the sea of folks that turned to increased video game play as a hobby. And a big one was that I decided to stream Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on a somewhat weekly basis!

The final form of my stream announcement banner. It got weird.

That experience was great! It was really formative for where I was as a game developer and also someone trying to parse moving on to post-college life in the midst of a profoundly isolating time. I felt very accomplished making goofy stream banners for these streams, loved getting attached to certain party members that were recruited, and loved sharing that with friends and viewers. If you watched those streams, thanks! I really appreciate ya!

​I wrapped on FFTA that around September 2021 and from there delved into various other tactics games. Horizon's Gate, Triangle Strategy, Fire Emblem Three Houses to name a few. I came to those with a more refined knowledge of points I know I enjoy and points I have heavy friction with and look to how a game solves them! And streaming made me realize I love elaborating on design thoughts, so here we are!