RADIANT TACTICS

Q: You’ve spent a surprising amount of time designing what’s essentially a tutorial for Radiant Tactics. Why so much effort?

A: Because I don’t think of it as a game mechanic’s tutorial per say, but something more interesting. The problem I was trying to solve wasn’t, “How do I teach players the rules?” It was, “How do I teach players to think like commanders?”

Build & Skirmish is a game about building a force to solve tactical problems. Army construction is one of Radiant’s main ‘fun’ pillars. It’s a core skill, something fun and challenging in itself, rather than just a hurdle to the fun of playing matches.

Q: Where did you start?

A: My first instinct was a fairly traditional progression campaign.

Players would start with a very limited roster. As they completed missions, they’d unlock new unit roles and gradually build a larger toolbox. The interesting idea was unlocking answers; unit selection as answers to puzzles encounters pose.

A player might run into a battle where enemy archers dominate them. They struggle, realize they need a way to pressure the back line, unlock a fast skirmisher, then return and discover that the encounter has become much easier.

I liked that emotional sequence:

“I almost won.”
“Now I understand what I was missing.”
“I have a new tool.”
“Now I can solve it.”

That felt much more satisfying than the player gradually earning a higher BP budget than enemy force. 

Q: One idea you explored was making players intentionally lose before giving them the solution.

A: I seriously considered it.

There’s a real educational advantage to failure.

If you lose because you lack mobility, then unlock cavalry afterwards, you immediately understand what cavalry are for. You quickly comprehend the value of that unit type.

Dark Souls proved you can give players challenges before they are ready, the experience of improving and earning the win making overcoming the gates a bigger achievement. 

On the other hand, while I’m comfortable with letting player struggle, I do mind players feeling like the game deliberately withheld the correct answer. There’s a fine line between challenging players and manufacturing frustration —the feeling of being railroaded.

Q: Another direction you explored was giving players enormous freedom.

A: Yeah.

Instead of saying, “Here’s Mission 4,” I wondered if each node should simply represent a strategic question.

Players might change their army. Or the objective. Or the weather. Or the battlefield. Instead of unlocking solutions, they’d discover them through experimentation.

I still like that idea, but it has a cost. Learning works better when you isolate variables; ff players can change five things between attempts, it’s hard for them to know which decision actually mattered.

Agency is great, but it’s not always the best approach to educating.

Q: But eventually the focus shifted away from unit unlocks.

A: Right. Once we started talking through individual encounters, highly scaffolded experience vs highly explorative, I realized I was asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking, “How should unit unlocks be structured?”, I started asking, “What is this mission actually teaching?” We realized every encounter we were considering was really teaching one of the major factors that influence army construction.

Things like:

• What objective are you playing?
• What terrain or weather changes the battle?
• What is the enemy trying to accomplish?
• What tools do you have available?
• What interactions actually decide this matchup?

Those are the questions experienced players naturally ask before building a force.

Once I saw that, campaign design stopped looking to questions of what unit should be unlocked in what order, and more to questions of curriculum design. What factors would you need to teach a commander to enable them to select advantageous matchups?

Q: Then another theme started emerging: commander knowledge.

A: That’s the piece that really tied everything together. The campaign wasn’t just teaching army building. 

It was teaching what experienced commanders know before they ever place a model on the battlefield.

Experienced players know what questions to ask.

What objective rewards this kind of force?
How does weather change the matchup?
Should I counter-build this opponent or bring an all-comers list?
When is mobility worth more than durability?

Those are commander skills.

Once I started framing the campaign that way, the structure became much clearer. 

Q: And that’s what led to the final design?

A: Exactly.

That ‘aha’ then sharpened the core player fantasy for the module. The campaign became a Tactician Certification.

Instead of feeling like a tutorial, we want the game to feel like the player is earning their basic commander credential in the world.  We want the gameplay experience to involve players in what a commander does — with scenario completion feeling achievement of having *proved* they could make judgements asked of a commander .

That fantasy gave me permission to break the ‘campaign’ into a series of practical tests. 

Each test teaches a different layer of command.

Commander Test A is intentionally simple. You pick a faction and win a round robin. Its job is to get you invested in what faction looks cool out the gate, and build baseline familiarity the later tests assume you already have.

Before we ask players to think strategically, they need enough experience with the game that later lessons have something to build on. Exploration of the different playstyles built into faction starter forces sustains the fun of getting that experience.

Commander Test B asks a different question.

You get to pick from the same factions you’re now familiar with, but face stronger opposing forces. The twist: before the battle, you get to change one factor that gives commanders an advantage.

Maybe you choose the weather.
Maybe you alter force composition.
Maybe you bring a strategic spell.
Maybe you tweak the battlefield.

The fantasy is “my knowledge lets me overcome a stronger opponent.”

Instead of lecturing players on relevant factors they should learn, those factors are now power ups. You experience your opponent getting them, you can explore effects on your force — you can learn these dimensions of army composition without a tutorial’s ‘hey listen!’ interruptions.

Commander Test C returns to the original node-map idea, but in miniature.

You begin with only a single unit type available. As you defeat encounters featuring other unit types, you unlock them for your own roster. Importantly, the BP budget doesn’t increase; the only thing that changes is your build options, never your raw power.  

That’s a deliberate design choice, not just a balancing convenience. the thing you’re progressing through is flexibility itself. You’re becoming stronger only because you’ve earned more build options, and your earning options by out building or out-playing nodes. By the time players play Test C, they can look at map itself as puzzle, planning a route that unlocks the units transforming ‘roadblocks’ into difficult, winnable matchups. 

That preserves what I liked most about the original progression while keeping the focus squarely on commander judgment. 

They’re becoming stronger because they have more strategic options, and they know how to use them.

Q: Looking back, what do you think changed most over the course of the design?

A: At the beginning I thought I was designing progression. By the end, I realized I was designing teaching a way of thinking, approaches to solving problems.

Every option we considered was trying to answer the same question: how do you help someone stop asking,

“What’s the best unit?”

…and start asking,

“Given this battle, what’s the best plan?”

I think that’s ultimately what army- and deck- building strategy games are about. The interesting decisions begin long before the first unit is placed on the table.

Q: What’s left open?

Me: Playtesting, honestly. Everything here needs to be validated with real players. If anyone reading this has run something similar or wants to help stress-test the node map once it’s playable, I’d love to hear from you! You can follow development and participate in playtests through our patreon or website.