A tactics game distills strategy to its purest form. Fewer units, more options per unit. A good tactics encounter gives you four units against six enemies on a map where terrain does real work. Winning requires finding the right sequence of moves. It is a puzzle with agency.

Summer Engine helps you build the unit ability system, map design tools, enemy AI, and encounter flow through conversation. You design the encounters and the challenge. The AI scaffolds the systems that make each ability decision feel meaningful.

The difference between a tactics game and a strategy game is scope. Strategy games have armies. Tactics games have squads. That focus lets you design encounter-by-encounter depth rather than macro-level resource management. Build tight encounters that feel solvable but not obvious.

• Designers inspired by Into the Breach or Invisible Inc who want to build a tight, focused tactics experience.
• Solo devs who want to ship a complete tactics game without the scope of a full SRPG.
• Teams building a puzzle-adjacent tactics game where each encounter is designed by hand.
• Anyone who wants a game that rewards pure tactical skill with no RNG crutch.

• Encounter Design Prototype

  Build ten handcrafted encounters with escalating complexity to test whether your ability system creates meaningful decisions.

• Puzzle Tactics Game

  Create a tactics game where each encounter has an optimal solution. Players find it through understanding the system.

• Roguelite Tactics

  Build a run-based tactics game where players select abilities and modifiers between encounters for a fresh challenge each time.