Miracle: Born & Dead

Project Overview: Miracle: Born and Dead (MBaD)

• Genre: Turn-Based Strategy / Real-Time Tactics (RTT)
• The Design Challenge: Bridging the gap between grand strategic empire management and micro-level real-time tactical combat within a deeply asymmetric, multi-faction original IP.
• Core Concept: A dual-phase strategy game where players guide an Industrial Age human army across the metaphysical realm of Eden. Players must manage resources, outposts, and exploration in a simultaneous turn-based "Camp Phase," and seamlessly transition into commanding large-scale armies in an isometric, real-time "Battle Phase".

The Macro Layer: Simultaneous Turn Execution

To maintain pacing and heighten strategic tension, the global map (Camp Phase) abandons traditional sequential turns.

• Simultaneous Resolution: Players allocate tasks—such as sending Explorers, upgrading Outposts, or moving troops—but no actions occur until the "Ready" phase is triggered. Once triggered, all player and enemy actions resolve simultaneously.
• Dynamic Encounter System: Because movement occurs at the same time, military encounters are highly unpredictable. Intersecting paths can result in different engagement types, including Pitched Battles, Outpost Sieges, or Ambushes, depending on intelligence gathered by Explorers.

The Micro Layer: Tactical Real-Time Combat

When armies clash, the game shifts to a real-time isometric battlefield where positioning, terrain, and unit synergy dictate the outcome.

• Advanced Unit Control: Players command troops using a system heavily inspired by Mount and Blade, utilizing keyword mappings to order entire unit classes or individually selecting specific squads.
• Environmental Tactics: The battlefield features heavily impactful terrain modifiers. For instance, Lava tiles are completely impassable to most factions, but gravity-controlling Graphons and alchemist Zemihkes can traverse them.

Asymmetric Faction & Unit Design

The game features five deeply asymmetric main factions (Humans, telepathic Klimarans, gravity-shifting Graphons, alchemist Zemihkes, and divine Orthodionos) with specialized unit archetypes.

• Dynamic Riders: Cavalry units can actively mount and dismount mid-battle, swapping between high-mobility heavy combatants and standard close-range infantry as the tactical situation demands.
• Combat Engineers: Engineer units dynamically reshape the battlefield in real-time by constructing trenches, ladders, and siege towers, or by building bridges over impassable water and lava terrains.
• Assassins & Traps: Stealth units can utilize specific environments (like bushes or forests) to hide from the enemy AI, gaining damage multipliers on their next strike or laying down proximity traps with varying setup times.

Progression & Objective System

Progression is tied to an invisible, organic objective system rather than a linear quest log.

• Hidden Milestones: Similar to Souls-like narrative design, even though it is unusual for a strategy game, objectives are entirely optional and discovered organically through exploration or post-battle clues.
• Tiered Economy: The economy is driven by a six-tier resource system (Wood, Stone, Steel, Arfashiler, Fharaber, Sanctaryst) that requires constant map expansion and territorial control to fuel high-level outpost construction and specialized troop formations.

Feel free to scroll through the full Game Design Document below, or click the top-right corner of the viewer to expand it.