Ennea at its heart is an exploration of people’s motivations, personalities, and seeks to make players at least consider these before taking action. The exploration part needs some sort of conflict in order push players forward. Thus, the battle system. The battles should work with the story; basically, the Virtues and actions you take outside of battle are then put into use in fighting against hostile spirits.

Val is the only party member for the sake of streamlining the game. She has 6 stats:

• Action(ACT) meant to simulate how willing a person is to act upon their virtues; the attack; currently tied to Virtue as a modifier, since the more you adhere to a Virtue in general the more likely you are to act upon it.

• Resilience(RES) meant to simulate how well you resist things that oppose your virtues; the defense; also affects status effect resistance; currently tied to Virtue as a modifier, since the more you adhere to a Virtue in general the less likely you are to suffer damage because of it.

• Focus(FOC) how easily a person can focus on memories/feelings of specific virtues; healing stat; with Val as the only character, healing becomes very important and is implemented for the sake of preventing multi-vice/enemy battles from being too difficult; not tied to Virtue to make healing easier instead of lumping it with ACT or RES

• Agility(AGI) how quickly a person can move; determines turn speed, evasion, reaction timer; not tied to Virtue because it doesn’t make sense being tied to it; can be important when dealing with multiple enemies at once, balances out having a one-person party

• Wisdom(WIS) the baseline Virtue cap; simulates the experience a person gains and therefore has a greater ability to hold virtue within themselves; there are time when a person’s virtue shines more, so Virtue can go over the WIS cap; however, when it goes below the cap and a person heals, the highest they can go is up the baseline WIS

• Virtue the HP; Val has multiple Virtue HP bars to simulate how a person can have differing Virtues; multiple HP bars imitates the effect of having multiple party members and buffers against more difficult enemies; you gain Virtue by meditating(healing) in battle, healing at a save point, or taking an action (dialogue/quests); only the latter can boost Virtue beyond the WIS cap

Battles stick to this basic system. The further you are in the game, the battles become more challenging: multi-vice enemies are added, then multiple enemy battles. Status effects can also be included, representing difficulties encountered when dealing with terrible personalities. As the battles are represented by overworld sprites, some are avoidable for the sake of preventing the game from being too grindy. Like irl conflicts, most times you get to choose which battles you face and appeals to both casual and battle-oriented players.

After battle, you earn gold which you can use to purchase items and equipment to make battle easier. You also gain experience which you can level up with. When you level up, you can earn skill points which you can put towards one of 4 skill trees, which present in order to appeal to different play styles.

Current issues this model has includes:

• Terrible balance issues; the way the system is currently set up, a player might have too much or too little Virtue to effectively survive filler combat; granted, this forces players to keep an eye on all of the Virtues instead of just one just as the game’s philosophy is meant to, but is sacrificing playability for philosophy worth it?

• Healing’s importance forces players to sacrifice a turn as Val is the only character; this might extend battle unnecessarily by forcing players to heal constantly

Alternative Implementation of Virtue

Rather than HP, Virtue can be implemented as one of many MP bars that power all your skills so it can still be tied to attack somehow; however, that would quickly drain Virtue and would overthrow a lot of the philosophy. You don’t become less courageous after a show of bravery or less understanding after you displaying what you have learned about a topic.

Something that is a very radical overhaul of the Virtue-HP system is the Virtue-progress system. This changes not only the creatures found in each region but also battle and game progression. Each land has one Virtue they excel at and have a deficiency in all the others, with one being especially weak. This invites hostile spirits of all the other vices into the region. Virtue is not a battle stat; ACT, RES, and HP are all independent. Rather, Virtue is like a progress bar for restoring balance in a region. The more enemies of a certain vice you defeat, the more of its opposite Virtue increases in the region until the area’s balance is restored (palettes become brighter, npcs gain different dialogue, monsters of a vice eventually disappear from the minor dungeon). After restoring balance, you can then enter the major dungeon and face the boss. Issues with this system might make the story repetitive and not as flexible (unless restoring balance is applied in another way like granting an item or skill or something). Also makes the battle system similar to other turn based rpgs; not much is changed other than battles feel more mandatory storywise.

Virtue could also be implemented as an elemental rock-paper-scissors system like Pokemon; after all, each Virtue can defeat a vice that society has caused. For example, Fire’s vice is wrath. Wrath is defeated by Harmony, which is Nature’s Virtue. Therefore, Nature beats Fire. This could quickly get complex due to 13 elements and lead to match-ups that do not correspond to the classical pairs (i.e. normally Water beats Fire and Fire beats Nature, but here Water beats Light and Fire and Nature beats Fire).

Virtue as indication of your rapport with an enemy (helping the enemy to understand their problems) is another solution. Like in the original system, your Virtues are pitted against the enemy’s vices as HP. However, ACT and RES are not tied to the HP Virtue but instead to the other unused ones. The closer your Virtues match (i.e. enemy has high UND and low CRG and so do you = high match) the more effective your attacks are but the more effective the enemy’s attacks are as well (you both resonate with one another, so it’s easier to get a response). Vice versa, if your Virtues do not match up well your RES goes up but ACT decreases (your values do not match and so it’s easier to ignore the other). You can meditate to heal or increase a stat or forget to decrease a stat to better match your opponent. This involves a lot of strategizing: do you want the battle to be over quickly or guarantee a win over time? Do I decrease my stats now for an easy win but risk having too little HP next time an encounter a spirit? This can make battle increasingly tedious, but it imitates conflict between people whose ideals match or don’t. Status effects would be of greater importance in this kind of battle system. For an example of this in use, play Taming Dreams on the Android market, first 2 episodes are free.

Virtue is separate from mental stamina (HP) and it is simply an attack/defense modifier. Depending on the amount of the Virtue you have, the stronger or weaker you will be in battle. Virtue can increase or decrease based on external actions take in the Overworld or boosted by meditation in battle. Virtues are specialized attack/defense modifiers against an enemy of the opposite vice.

Virtues as class: Following specific Virtues encourage a particular style of fighting. For example, courage as a high DPS, air as primarily AGI focused, etc. Val would be your generic build-your-own character based on fighting style, with flexible skill trees. The problem then becomes how can we make it necessary to become well-rounded?

Virtue should be:

• Affected by story(can go up or down based on decisions taken by the player)

• Affected by battle(conflicts are based on ideological battles, therefore your virtues can change as can the enemies)

• The Virtue system should somehow encourage the player to become well-rounded in them by either benefitting the player; though deviation is allowed, extreme specialization in just one Virtue should somehow be punished by the gameplay

Initiation

Initiative determined by AGI stat; a graphic showing turn order appears on top, also determined by AGI

Player Turn

Choose between Act(Offensive Skills), Tactic(defend for a turn, flee), Meditate(Heal, Defensive Skills, Stat Changing), or Item.

• If Act or Meditate chosen Critical timer bar appears with green area, size of which is affected by FOC stat; if confirm key is pressed at the right time, critical hit- increased damage or added negative effect, increased healing or added positive effect

• If Act hits Enemy Enemy has short moment (half a second or less) following attack hit to react; if reaction is true, then damage dealt with be lessened or status effects are less likely to occur, or some counterattack will be done to the player

If Enemy Turn

No enemies have an Item, so will choose either Act, Tactic, or Meditate.

• If Meditate chosen Enemies will not have a critical timer bar.

• If Act chosen Critical timer bar appears with green area; randomly choose when to attack; if hit within the green area, critical hit

• If Act hits Player Player has short moment (half a second or less, can be increased with AGI stat) to react, visual or auditory cue will be given; if timed right, reaction where damage dealt will be lessened, lower chance of negative status effects occurring, or Val deals a counterattack

End

Battle ends when either the player has run out of HP, the enemy has run out of HP, or either Val or the enemy flees.

Mechanics call for keyboard controls, with optional mouse interaction. Movement in overworld include arrow keys/WASD with inputs for diagonal movement and/or analog stick, and a button for interaction, default is X. For menu navigation, Enter pauses the game and opens the menu. Arrow keys/WASD to navigate, X for confirmation and Z for canceling. Menu controls are also used in-battle with reaction-based critical attacks. Mouse movement can be substituted for selection movement when navigating menus and battles.

• MES mental stamina, your HP and how tired you are; if this hits zero, the battle is over

• ACT action, affects the strength of your attacks and chance of inflicting status effects

• FOC focus, how much Virtue or MES you gain when meditating as well crit hit rate

• RES resilience, the defense of your MES against enemy attack or status effects

• AGI agility, affects turn speed as well as evasion rate; unaffected by Virtue

• Virtues these are your “elemental affinities;” the higher one Virtue is the stronger your attacks and defenses against one type of vice attack become but the weaker it becomes to another vice

Val will face many hostile spirits during her travels, all of which aim to render her unable of having energy and thus easy to rend her soul from her body. Due to their incorporeal nature, spirits cannot be harmed by physical attacks. However, by learning how to wield Virtue, one can fight against the spirits and let them move on.

Your character has thirteen attributes, each representing one of the thirteen Virtues, all starting at zero but can increasing to a baseline capacity determined by your WIS or higher depending on actions you take both inside and outside of battle. Your enemies, on the other hand, have the opposite of these- Vices. Depending on the amount of certain Virtues you have, Val will either be well-prepared or weak when facing certain enemies, forcing players to be well-balanced.

Combat begins with Val taking initiative, given the choice of either Attack, Meditate, Item, or Flee. Attack allows you to use an offensive skill against the enemy, Meditate lets you heal or change Virtue amounts, Item lets you use an item from your inventory, and Flee lets you escape an encounter. Following your choice of action, enemies have a similar choice of Attack or Meditate.

There are certain status effects present in battle that can affect you or the enemy. These end after a certain number of turns though they can be healed via a skill or item.

• Fatigued greatly lower ACT

• Vulnerable greatly lower RES

• Frazzled greatly lower FOC

• (?) greatly lower AGI

• Zealous greatly increase ACT

• Resolute greatly increase RES

• (?) greatly increase FOC

• Haste greatly increase AGI

• (stun equivalent) unable to move

• (poison equivalent) slowly drain MES each turn

• (regen equivalent) slowly heal MES each turn

Your goal as the player is to reduce your enemies’ MES down to zero. In a similar vein, you want to make sure that your own MES does not drop to zero or below; if it does then the battle is lost since you are too tired to fight the spirit. Healing and meditating is encouraged. On occasion you may have to fight two or three enemies at a time.

At the end of battle, you gain EXP, item drops if any, and gold. When your EXP bar is full, you gain a level which boosts your stats and gives you skill points to be used in the Skill Tree.

Movement in the overworld is done from an top down view similar to Super Mario RPG, where you can move around the map, entering and exiting areas, and encountering enemies which appear as single sprites. Running into these sprites immediately start a battle between one or more foes. Other objects you can interact with are NPC humans, peaceful spirits, treasure chests, switches and levers in certain areas, and save points which also serve to heal you.

The menu can be accessed from the overworld at any time. Within it, a panel displaying Val’s stats are available for you to see as well as Skills, Items, Bestiary, Map, Options, and Return to Main Menu. The Skills page lets you see all of the skills you have learned as well as look at the Skill Tree so that you spend skill points. The Items page lets you look at your inventory, both with in-battle use items, equipment, and key items. The Bestiary contains all of the enemies you have encountered as well as their stats. The Map shows you both the world map and local map as well as the location of yourself, items, and entrances/exits. The Options page allows for you to adjust graphics and audio. Returning to the Main Menu lets you go back to quit the current saved game.

Equipment

There are five basic item slots for equipment- Hands, Mind, Heart, Body, and Feet. The Hands slot is where ACT boosting items can be equipped in place of a weapon. The Mind slot is for FOC boosting equipment. Items that either boost Virtue or regenerate MES can be equipped in the Heart slot. The Body slot is where defensive RES boosting items can be equipped. Finally, items in the Feet slot boost AGI.

Other Items

Other items that can be used in-battle include healing items which can double as attack items, status inducing items to be used on both Val and/or enemies, and component items to be used for quests and crafting.

The skills Val can use in battle can be found in the Skills page, with 4 branching paths within the Skill Tree. The first branch is the ACT branch; skills in this branch increase your attack power as well as unlock stronger attack skills. The FOC branch boosts MES recovered when meditating as well as unlocks healing skills and Virtue-changing skills. The defensive tree, the RES branch, lets you use status blocking skills as well as create in-battle shields that weaken enemy attacks significantly. The final branch is the AGI tree which focuses on increasing speed, evasion, and adds status inducing skills.