Occasionally I fall in the need of design some kind of RPGish stuff, so here we are.

I cannot draw, or at least I can draw to the level of a 6 years old baby, which is my greatest limit, because I love to do my stuff alone. That said, I'd like to make a game with mechanics similar to Baldur's Gate. Not the graphics, only the mechanics, which is mainly the pause-based combat system and the 6 men party management.

Yeah, but how to do something like that with so limited draw skills (no animations, no human-like figures)? I also want to keep it simple enough to have at least a chance to go somewhere, if I start. I'm pretty expert in 2D top down games, but zero experience on isometric. I played a while with the insane idea of 3D, but luckily I finally discarded.

This mock shows my ideas, with the good guys on the left and the bad ones on the right. Top down, no animations, grid based movement for easy A*... I have now to sleep over it to understant if it can works or if it will brings to a boring and not satisfying game.

Maybe with a good story, some nice particle effects, a nice music, a well defined set of rules (who said d20?) and a lovely hand crafted world even a poor and basic (but consistent) graphic style can lead to ad immersive game experience.

At least this is what I hope.