In a turn-based fight nothing happens until you have decided what should. The player gives an order to each soldier, ship or adventurer, the game works out what those orders lead to, and then the other side has its go or the next round begins. The time a turn takes on screen has nothing to do with the time it represents in the game: Computer Gaming World, defining the term for its readers in 1992, called turn-based games those “in which each turn represents a period of time which is not equivalent to time outside the game”.
The idea reached computers along two roads at once. Computer wargames inherited the turn from board wargames, where it had always been the only way to play, and computer role-playing games inherited the combat round from Dungeons & Dragons. Both were in use on home computers by 1981. The name came much later, when real-time games made it necessary to say what the older ones did differently.
Fast facts
- From board wargames: Computer Bismarck (Strategic Simulations, 1980) and the wargames that followed it.
- From Dungeons & Dragons: Wizardry (Sir-Tech, 1981), whose 1982 review said simply “Encounters are fought in turns”.
- Action points and opportunity fire: Rebelstar (1986) and Laser Squad (1988), carried into UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994).
- On consoles: Dragon Warrior (NES, 1989), introduced by Nintendo Power as “an era of deductive reasoning”.
- The word: in American magazines by 1991; defined in Computer Gaming World’s glossary in November 1992; in British magazines by 1992.
The wargame turn
Board wargames were played in turns, with each side moving its counters and then resolving the fights. Early computer wargames kept the structure and let the machine do the arithmetic. Strategic Simulations advertised Computer Bismarck in 1980 as “a test of intellect and courage rather than hand-eye coordination”, “More like Chess than Pong”. Its founder, Joel Billings, described the rhythm of one of its space battle games to Creative Computing in 1981: “Before each battle you enter your orders”, the other player does the same, and “Then you have the execution phase and the computer prints out what ships have fired at each other”.
British wargames did the same on the Spectrum. CRASH described M.C. Lothlorien’s games in 1984 as ones in which “each player in turn is allowed to move some or all of his units”, and they took “hours to play properly”. The glossary Computer Gaming World printed in its hundredth issue named the variant in which sides take turns in sequence: a “phased” game, “in which players (human and/or computers) alternate in activities over the course of a turn”.
The party round
Role-playing games brought a different kind of turn: one order for each member of a party, then the round plays out. Mark Marlow’s review of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord in the May 1982 Computer Gaming World explained that the game was “modeled on the Dungeons and Dragons game concept with the computer assuming the role of the Dungeon Master”, and described a fight like this:
Several things can occur during an encounter. You could surprise the monsters and have one round of unanswered combat. If the monsters surprise you, then they get one round of unanswered combat. If you both run into each other at the same time, the computer will randomly pick who gets to fight first, though high agility or luck could swing things in your favor. Encounters are fought in turns: you determine what each character in your band is going to do, then the computer gives you the result in rapid sequence.
The player could slow the results down to anything from “a fraction of a second to five seconds”. Marlow’s advice shows the kind of thinking the system asked for: “The strongest initial group consists of three fighters, two priests, and a mage”, and “Hit points can be lost quickly so use your priests to heal during combat.”
That was not the only way to stage a fight. Computer Gaming World‘s first issue, in November 1981, praised Automated Simulations’ Dragon’s Eye for letting one character fight blow by blow: “a player with a scimitar might enter a rapid sequence of orders that will cause his character to leap forward 6 steps, bring a smashing downward blow upon the monster’s head, parry, duck, then back away.” Wizardry gave the player a party of up to six to command instead, one order each, and that is the shape the party role-playing game kept.
The two roads met at SSI, the wargame publisher that also made role-playing games. Reviewing its Eternal Dagger in 1988, the British Commodore Disk User found the emphasis on “the tactical level combat system in which you control every move and action of your characters in a battle. Unlike other games where you simply decide whether to attack or defend or cast a spell in this game position, facing and angle of attack are important. A wargamers’ role playing game.”
Action points and opportunity fire
On the Spectrum, Julian Gollop changed what a single turn could hold. In Rebelstar (Firebird, 1986) each soldier had a stock of action points to spend on moving, readying weapons and firing. A soldier who kept some back could shoot during the enemy’s turn when an enemy came into view. Gollop told Edge in 2001 that opportunity fire came from the board wargames he played, and why it had to be there: “One of the main anomalies with turn-based games is that you can be covering the end of a corridor and an enemy unit will just move past it during their move. You don’t get the chance to shoot it.”
Edge, reviewing Rebelstar again in 1996, counted action points and opportunity fire among its “revolutionary concepts in turn-based gameplay”, and noted what they did to planning: part of it was “deliberately not using up all your character’s action points during a turn to allow them the chance for ‘opportunity fire’”. Gollop refined the system in Laser Squad (1988), and it came through almost intact in UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994). PC Gamer’s guide to its demo explained the “Time Units (TUs) or Action Points (APs)”: walking one step on even ground cost four and turning 45° cost one, and a soldier with enough left at the end of a turn “can shoot at aliens that move into his or her field of view. This is called opportunity fire.”
Dragon Warrior, 1989
On the NES, the menu battle arrived with Dragon Quest, released in America as Dragon Warrior in 1989. Nintendo Power introduced it as a new direction for NES games, in which “mere finger-speed and sweat are no match for the challenges which lie in wait for every player. Now more than ever before, an era of deductive reasoning is challenging us all to excel”. The next issue’s strategy feature described the battle menu as a problem to reason through: “Selecting the best command takes full knowledge of your strengths.” Spells appear in a window, some useless in battle; “Before choosing a Spell, consider your status—your HP and MP—and the type of enemy”; and of the items, “only the Herb helps in a fight”.
Naming it
“Turn-based” became a common word only once there was something to contrast it with. In November 1991 an Amiga World advertisement sold a naval wargame as a “turn-based, tactical simulation”, and by 1992 the term was common in Computer Gaming World. That November the magazine’s first glossary defined it, alongside “phased” and “real-time”. British magazines used it too: PC Review in May 1992 told readers who “really want a turn based strategy game with a future combat scenario” to look elsewhere, and a U.S. Gold advertisement in Amiga Format that December promised “real-time space combat” in one part of a game and combat that “is AD&D turn-based” in another.
By the mid-1990s the word was mostly used to say what a newer game was not. Super Play’s November 1994 review of Secret of Mana explained that its “action-based combat system (‘motion battle’, as those Square folk call it) is similar to that of Zelda”, which made it “far more accessible than the turn-based, menu-driven combat of RPGs like Final Fantasy”. A year later Edge wrote of Super Mario RPG: “Rather than taking Square’s usual turn-based approach to RPGs, Super Mario RPG is an action affair with familiar Mario game mechanics.”
The same Edge issue reviewed Chrono Trigger and put the Western complaint about Japanese role-playing games in one phrase, “basic graphics and random battles with stop-start gameplay”, before noting what Square had changed: “Although the game’s battle engine is still turn-based, Square has made an effort to rework it. Not only can characters combine their powers to create a super attack, but their opponent’s position on the screen is now also important”. Square’s own earlier answer to the pacing complaint, the Active Time Battle gauge, has its own entry.
That issue’s strategy feature made the case on both sides. “Turn-based games are (at their most basic level) easier to play and control because you can sit back, examine and contemplate your next course of action before moving,” it said, and “It’s ironic that the most hectic simulations of real life — wargames — feature the most regimented turn-based structure of all.” Multiplayer games were the problem, since everyone else had to wait. Introducing Bullfrog’s research into multiplayer games with Peter Molyneux, the feature declared that “Every programmer agrees that the turn-based system is inadequate”.
The turn survived the argument. X-COM: Apocalypse (1997) let players choose, and Edge described its tactical battles as playable “in either a turn-based mode, similar to the original games, or in realtime”.
Sources
- “The CGW Glossary”, Computer Gaming World issue 100, November 1992, p. 194: definitions of “Turn-Based”, “Phased” and “Real-Time”.
- Byte vol. 5 no. 3, March 1980, p. 165: Strategic Simulations advertisement for Computer Bismarck.
- David H. Ahl, interview with Joel Billings, Creative Computing vol. 7 no. 12, December 1981, pp. 92–94.
- CRASH issue 4, May 1984, p. 70: review of Lothlorien’s Johnny Reb.
- Mark Marlow, review of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Computer Gaming World issue 4, May 1982, pp. 6–8.
- Daniel Hockman, review of Dragon’s Eye, Computer Gaming World issue 1, November 1981, p. 29.
- Preview of SSI’s releases, including The Eternal Dagger, Commodore Disk User vol. 1 no. 6, September 1988.
- Edge issue 93, January 2001, pp. 107–110: the making of Rebelstar (opportunity fire and the board wargames).
- Edge issue 36, September 1996, p. 69: retro review of Rebelstar (action points and opportunity fire).
- PC Gamer (UK) issue 5, April 1994: cover-disk guide to the UFO: Enemy Unknown demo (time units and opportunity fire).
- Nintendo Power issue 6, May/June 1989, pp. 52–53: Dragon Warrior preview. Issue 7, July/August 1989, pp. 38–39: Dragon Warrior strategy feature (the battle menu).
- Amiga World vol. 7 no. 11, November 1991: advertisement for a naval wargame (“turn-based, tactical simulation”).
- Laurence Scotford, review of Steel Empire, PC Review issue 7, May 1992.
- U.S. Gold advertisement for SSI’s Spelljammer, Amiga Format issue 41, December 1992.
- Review of Secret of Mana, Super Play issue 25, November 1994.
- Edge issue 26, November 1995: Super Mario RPG prescreen, p. 28; Chrono Trigger review, pp. 70–71; strategy feature, pp. 43–45.
- Review of X-COM: Apocalypse, Edge issue 48, August 1997.