What makes a good tickling battle system?

Hi all,

I've been working on a possible rpgmakermv game on and off, and although I think most elements of the game are coming along well, the battle system has really got me stumped. That got me thinking that I'd love to hear more from people about what they enjoy and what they don't enjoy about the different types of battle systems that have been around tickling games. Some types of questions I have in mind are things like:

-Do you prefer when battles require actual strategy or when you can basically just button mash?
-Do you have a preference between systems where the battle is just a battle and the tickling happens as a result of the outcome, or is it more engaging when the tickling actually happens in the battle through attacks etc (and maybe there is also a tickling related outcome)?
-Do you have any examples of particular battles in tickling games you really loved?

In case people are curious about my game and what I've been thinking about doing.. Basically its a game where you would be playing as the lee. Two types of systems I'm thinking of are 1) a system where the battle has a set number of turns and your goal is basically to survive until its over by using certain strategies to reduce incoming damage, and 2) a more conventional system where you "attack" to diminish "life points" but its more like you are doing things to reduce the enemies will to continue tickling you. In that case there would be a kind of type system too. So like some enemies might be "weak" to "begging type" attacks. I'm not in love with either idea though so might just go back to the drawing board. Hence, why I'm interested in what most appeals to people.

-Personally I am not a big fan of overly difficult fights in these kinds of games. I am much more into good writing and overcoming a difficult fight does not provide me any additional pleasure. Maybe not button mashing, as I would also want the fights to be something that is interesting and not over too quickly (and considering there are game over scenes, losing should at least be possible), but I would much prefer if the fight was interesting because of the things that happen during it and not because there was always the high risk of getting a game over.

-I do not believe that there could ever be too much tickling for me, so I'd say that I would prefer the tickling to also take place during the fights.
A simple system in which you just use an attack called "Tickle Feet" that does a specific amount of damage, depending on weakness and resistance, with no extra writing or animation attached to it, of course isn't that exciting, but still, I'd find it more appealing than the same system in which the attack used would be just called "Fire Ball".

-There was this completely text based game, called... "The Supreme Element", I believe, that was quite interesting in terms of it's battle system. But especially if you're using the RPG Maker, I'd reckon I speak for many here, when I say that it is the game "The Tower of Gargalesis" that you should look into, when trying to find an exciting tickling based battle system. I can't really say what exactly makes the battling in these games so interesting, because quite frankly, the battles were probably the weakest part of both of them. I guess it must be very difficult to create a battling system that would speak to someones passion for tickling, unless you have unlimited ressources and manpower to make the battles very visual.
The next best thing to that would be to make sure that the good writing of the game also carries over to the fights. So detailed descriptions for what is going on and lots of variety.

If you want the player character to be exclusively 'lee, there is always the option to have the protagonist use regular fighting moves and only the enemies using tickling. The concept of having to survive the tickling does sound interesting as well though. That more passive approach to combat would also allow the player character to kind of play fights, that in most other games would only be non-interactive events or game over scenes (like the protagonist starting the "fight", being completely tied up already). So your idea sounds very interesting and unique to me.

Anyway, best of luck to you, for creating that game. ^-^

Well, I am helping someone out with their project and they're mostly using plugins to make the tickling a very interactive experience--simply just clicking on spots of the feet to tickle them with the added benefit of doing extra damage if you click their bad spot.

A game project I eventually want to work on has the player in the role of the tickler. The tickle events would be using the default battle (with the help of Yanfly's Battle Core, of course) and has the player using moves to tickle spots on their targets feet with the addition of having tickle tools you can equip to change your tickle moves and tickle spells you can use later on.

disclaimer, i am bad at english and worse at proof reading so i am sorry if reading this makes your eyes bleed

I think what you need from a dev perspective is a core for your system.
the single mechanic your battle revolves around.
Pokemon for example uses elemental weaknesses prompting the player to have many different poekemon, with different attacks wich feeds into the goal of catching the mons.
SMT usally has a big insentive on buffs, debuffs, and party structure.
and something like dragonquest uses a fuckton of different abillites with specialised moves and sometimes a lot of turn stealing to be effective

I think a debuff approach would be kinda interesting for your game as a lee, for example begging would not deal damage to the 'ler, but if he is weak to it he deals less damage to you... the reason being he feels bad and goes easy on you.

you could do things like trying to seduce them mid fight, wich may confuse an enemy who now has a chance to sit a turn out cause he is aroused and needs to compose himself.

Or you could go with the dragonquest and debuff approach together creating specialized buffs/debuffs for example:
You could present yourself to an enemy, like proping up your feet, pulling up your shirt, basicly revealing a weak spot, wich would enrage an enemy. In our context enrage would mean that our enemy is so onboard with you showing of and just wants to straight up tickle you NOW that he does not use spells or abillitys.
That move would be really good against caster type enemies, but useless against bruiser type enemies

that example would also work espacially well with a casting system for enemies, something like they need to set out a turn to charge a strong tickling spell/move/whatever, and you can present your weapoints while he charges in the hopes that he gets the debuff, cancels his spell and insted normal tickles you wich may deal way less damage.

Just a small example but you know, a single core move or concept your system can revolve around with meaningfull interaction.

Don't make it too difficult or complicated and if you have an option, have some texts coming with them, don't just throw a tickle sound effect at the player. For good examples, I recommend trying Nightgames or Corruption of Champions. (these are "battle fuck" games, not tickling, but good bases for possible tickling games). And Nightgames even has some tickling content). Jayakun's "Amirian Curse" is also pretty well balanced IMO although the development has a weird structure and despite you can play it to the end, many things still seem hollow and placeholder-y. But the potential is sky high.

The Tower of Gargalesis is a legend of tickling games, the writing is terrific, but combat was annoying (in fact, keeping your level as low as possible was a must for some boss fights). Oneortheother's The To-Tickle List has better and worse moments, the writing is fun, QTE-based fight interrupting reading lewd stuff... not so much. Maybe they'd be better as purely adventure games. Sometimes it's more than enough.

Screamer games are a mixed bunch for me, they are not my favorite writing wise, but for tickling based combat, he got the closest to perfection. Targetable body parts are great, but those games lack descriptive text to match them, which makes the fights nothing more than average combat with skills renamed for tickling. But should someone make them more descriptive... *chef's kiss*

As for the combat mechanism itself, never make the mistake of not giving the opponent health bars and for the love of God, don't make them "tickle sponges". Nothing kills the mood more than trying to balance health potion consumption and attacking during a seemingly endless fight.

I agree with the gent above me mentioning Supreme Element, tickling stuff is all over great (but what else should we except from a god of tickling fiction writing like Kunzite), too bad it's fully text based, because it makes the game itself, let's just say, an oldschool sort of fun.

Long story short, a good tickling battle system shall always serve a purpose, and that purpose is tickling fetish first and combat second.