Skills Redesign Again . . . again

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 2026 Babyyyy!
This is the year for Gridbound. When I started making Gridbound in the second half of 2025 I already knew that  I wanted to release in 2026.

OK!.  Dont judge me please, but yes, I am changing the skills for Gridbound yet again. This is the 4th time now that I am trying a different iteration of waht is essentially the same system.
Luckily this time since I have all the code from the previous iterations and all the skill functionality already setup. This iteration is more of a philosophical change than a technical change.

Since I started adding skills to Gridbound I have beend asking myself many questions. 

• What is the purpose of skills in a game like this?

• Does this exist only to help players?

• Is it just a incremental ladder of bigger and bigger numbers?

In recent playtests I ahave been feeling like all decisions you made about which skills to unlock next were arbitrariry and inconsequential. All skills always help you and all skills avoid breaking other skills. This meant the system was overdesigned to the point that there was noting left for the player to figure out or discover. There is no "good plan" or "great plan" or "ok so that doesn't work" since every plan would be "kinda ok".

in an effort to change this but still have the skills be easily understandable. I decided to break the single branching skill tree into many branching skill trees.

Skills Redesign

In the last update we talked about Councilors and their abilities. Since that time I have been testing how it works and feels in game and something just felt a bit off. I couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was that just made the whole system feel cumbersome and difficult to understand. I spent the next few weeks tweaking and then redesigning and then tweaking the system over and over again.

But after playing a few incremental/clicker games with skill trees I was inspired. 

It is not a complete redesign as almost all abilities from councilors found their way into the new skill tree in some way. 

With the skill tree interacting with the skill system is

• easy to navigate

• easier to understand

• synergies don't get lost in the experience

How the Skill tree works:

• Skill 1: Foundations, is the core skill out of which the skill tree branches out into multiple paths

• Skills may have multiple connections via multiple paths

• At least one of those connected skills must be unlocked to be able to unlock a skill

• All skills start hidden and then are revealed as you explore the skill tree

• Once skills are revealed they remain as such even in future runs - you will have to unlock them again though

• The cost to unlock a skills increases as you unlock more skills - skills don't have individual costs

My goals for this month were simple,

Create enough councilors so that we can test new ideas and synergies and add enough content for what would be considered a "alpha" version of the game.

At the beginning of the month I had made 5 basic councilors that do things like add chance for quarries to explode or increase the number of trees a map generates etc.

The design for a new councilor generally goes like this:

• Is this councilor just a slight variation of a councilor that already exists? if yes, then trash it!

• Are there enough councilors that create synergies with councilors that already exist? if no, then lets think of one!

• Is there any system, or mechanic, or hook that we have not yet explored? if yes, then lets do that!

The following councilor par exemple :

Most councilors will end up changed quite a lot by the end, but the focus has been on content so that I can test and iterate.

Before I add more Councilors, I want to now shift focus on progression and economy a little bit. These are not necessarily big mechanics but do require a lot of balancing. And that balancing is dependent on councilor mechanics since councilors could be very OP and make progression a breeze (as they should, but not wildly).

Another challenge has been learning pixel art __ but it has also been one of the more rewarding aspects of working on Gridbound.

Here's what the first 10 councilors look like as of now:

Hi there, welcome to the very first devlog for Gridbound - a puzzle/strategy game about buildng settlements. I am excited to share the journey of building it with you! Let's Gooooo........

In Gridbound, you play as a noble lord under the emperor, tasked with establishing prestigious settlements on challenging maps. You place buildings on a grid, score prestige based on adjacency, and appoint powerful councilors who change the rules as you go.

here's a breakdown of the gameplay and rules: