One thing before we start: the system described in this log is locked. The individual skills, their trigger conditions, and their names are not — they will keep shifting while we tune the game. Please read every example here as a snapshot of where we are today, not a promise of the final version.
We're making DPS: a desktop idle game where you run the dungeon, and adventurers come to die in it. Three creatures, one lane, no buttons. Combat runs on its own while you do something else.
Which raises the one question that matters for a game like this:If you never press anything, what are you actually deciding?Our answer: you decide what your creatures are waiting for.
Each creature has two skills that fire on their own — the cooldown is ready, there's an enemy in front, it goes. Simple.The other six don't work like that. You equip them, and they wait. Each one watches for one specific thing — you take a hit, an ally takes damage, the boss protects itself, a new wave of enemies begins — and only when that thing happens does it fire. Never before.
Minos takes a hit, and he gets a shield. The boss Blesses itself, and Mori's curse detonates in response. A new wave begins, and Diana's phantom arm points at the enemy with the most HP and Marks it.
You didn't do any of that yourself. You decided it would happen the moment you equipped the skill.Three slots. Eight skills to choose from. That's the whole build — and it holds a lot more depth than it sounds like.
This is the part we love. A trigger doesn't only watch its own creature. It watches the whole fight.
Minos stands in front and takes the hits — that's his job. Mori, hiding in the back, flinches every time an ally takes damage, and curses the enemy who did it. So Minos being your wall is, quietly, Mori's damage engine. Neither of them knows it. Flinch only says "when an ally is hit."
Diana Marks a target, and Gula — the demon mouth on the end of Mori's staff — lunges at it and bites, without being asked. Someone kills an enemy, and Gula eats the body. Kills are fuel, and the whole team shares it.None of this is scripted. A trigger names an action, never a character. Put any three creatures in the lane and the connections are already there — including combinations we haven't found yet. We're genuinely looking forward to seeing what you find.
There are two creatures we haven't shown you yet. Here's a glimpse of one of them.
He fights with a pair of giant scissors, and he has two stances. Keep the shears whole, and he cuts things in half. Split them apart, and he dual-wields two blades, cutting fast.His skills switch him between the two. And because some of those skills fire on their own, he doesn't pick a stance and stay in it — he keeps switching, mid-fight, depending on what's happening around him.Next log.If this sounds like your kind of game, wishlisting it genuinely helps us. And if you already have a trigger in your head you'd want to see — tell us in the comments. Some of our favorite skills started exactly that way.— Detailgames team