Forced movement
Abilities push, pull, or throw units to new positions, making an enemy's location a thing the player can control rather than merely react to. Into the Breach is built entirely on forced movement: you rarely kill enemies directly, you shove them into each other, off cliffs, or out of attack range. Designers use forced movement to turn positioning into an active weapon, to enable environmental kills (knock enemies into hazards), and to create puzzle-like combat where repositioning the board is the solution. Key decisions: push distance and collision rules (what happens when a shoved unit hits another, or a wall), whether it interacts with terrain hazards, immunity for heavy enemies, and readability — the player must precisely preview where a unit will end up. Pitfall: forced movement without meaningful terrain or collision to move things into is just repositioning for its own sake; its power depends entirely on an environment full of hazards, edges, and clustered enemies to exploit.
- Dev effort: Small
- Timing: Turn-based
- Common in: tactics, puzzle