My newest game is a pit-fighting combat arena that allows you to get into fights with your character from the 5th edition TTRPG that rhymes with Luncheons and Wagons. I've written more narrative digital gamebooks in the past but ran into some technical challenges in how to handle combat. So, for this game, I wanted to go with a no-plot game that would allow me to focus solely on getting combat right for a solo RPG gamebook. This allowed me to spend most of my time writing more complex code. In 5e Arena, you'll find gridded combat, enemies that behave differently depending on their nature, and actions that update depending on where the player character is in relation to the opponent.

I also wanted to write a game that people in an in-person or online game could play between sessions. There are rules in the books for downtime activities like pitfighting and gambling, but they are pretty "zoomed out", just giving the ending results of your days at work rather than a more exciting set of individual encounters.  Instead, I chose to stage one-on-one fights with a variety of interesting opponents. I wanted each enemy in the Arena to have their own story in the pre-fight and post-fight scenes. 

With this type of one-on-one fight setup, there's a danger of encounters becoming boring slap-fests. I tried to introduce some variety in two ways. First, I wanted to pick enemies that would have different battlefield strategies. A wild beast doesn't fight the same as a humanoid who prefers a ranged weapon, so I had to program their behavior to be different. Second, I chose to throw in some surprises. You'll see some fights that have slightly different rules or setups, and some obstacles added in by either the Arena's management or the opponents themselves.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this game. I'm already at work expanding it for 4th and 5th level players. Let me know what you'd like to see.