Grid Battle Engine: Target Selection

In RPG Maker, we have items and skills which represent actions that battlers use to interact with one another. For example, you have skills such as “Attack” or “Guard” or “Heal”, or you have items such as “Potion” or “Magic Water”.

The list of targets for each action is based on the “scope”, such as “One Ally”, “One Enemy”, “All Alive Allies” and so on. The game then presents a list of targets that you can select based on that scope.

With grid-based target selection, I give you more freedom over who you want to target. Instead of choosing an actor or enemy directly, you choose the tile that they’re standing on, which could be an empty tile depending on the scope of your action.

Combined with other battle mechanics such as Area of Effect or Grid Movement, this add-on for the Grid Battle Engine can provide your game with an additional element of strategy

Download

Plugin: get it here

This is an add-on for the Grid Battle Engine.

Installation

Download the plugin and place it in the “plugins” folder in your project’s “js” folder. Then open your Plugin Manager (F10), double-click an empty row below Hime_GridBattle, and select the HIME_GridTargetSelection plugin.

Once it is in your list of plugins, turn the plugin on.

Usage

This plugin is mostly plug-n-play, but there are a few things to know about how this plugin works.

Valid Grids

You will only be able to select targets on grids that have a valid target. For example, if your skill is for enemies only, you would only be able to select grids that have enemies. On the other hand, if your skill is for actors only, you would only be able to select grids that have actors.

For a single-grid battle, where all enemies and actors are on the same grid, this doesn’t really matter. For multi-grid battle, where enemies and actors may be on different grids, this becomes more apparent.

Empty Tile Condition

This is a special condition that allows you to target empty tiles. By default, an action can’t be used if there are no valid targets on the selected tile (or around the tile, in the case of area of effect).

This isn’t an issue normally, but there may be certain types of skills where empty tile selection is required, such as moving to an empty tile.

To enable empty tile selection, add the note-tag

<empty tile: required>

User Grid Only

There are situations where you only want to be able to target the user’s grid only.

You can use the note-tag

<user grid only>

To force the game to only allow you to target the user’s grid.