Game Developers Refuge

I'm starting to design my compo entry. Progress on this has been slow, as I'm tired, and actually a little perplexed as to how I'm going to approach this.

The 4 emoji I rolled are:

The gist of it is: the player is using a dating service that woos potential mates by delivering customized moai to their doorstep. You have to ask the lady a few simple questions and guess what she'd like. Good guesses get you more points. After so many attempts, the game goes into a final round, and then ends.

My current thought is to have the screen split into two halves. The top half will manage the dating aspect, where you pick prospective mates and ask questions, and the bottom half will house a mini-game where you attempt delivery of the moai. Obviously I'll have some basic obstacles to throw in the player's way. If the moai arrives with minimal damage, you get a bonus.

I'm being lazy, so I have nothing to show yet.

Well, I have to admit that the game name you chose represents those 4 emojis so well!

You gotta start somewhere, right?? Just a screen of me dicking around with some haphazard tile data, and some title screen elements. I also have a 16x16 sprite on-screen with movement and collision detection against tiles, but that's not obvious from the screenshot.

My current idea is to set up a time-limited exploration/crafting game on Easter Island. Player will need to collect valuable items to pay off an informant, who will pass on clues to what type of Moai your girl wants. More money = get clues faster. You'll then have to scour the island for the resources to build that particular Moai. The trick... is that the island is suffering from volcanic activity, and every so often a quake hits, which destroys resources on the island at random. If you take too long, there won't be anything left. But you don't want to randomly farm because you might spend too much time on the wrong resource.

You start with a few "blueprints" for various Moai. You can find new ones as you explore, but it will take a few games to get them all. You may not have the best Moai for the girl you roll at the start of the game. You'll just have to make a guess given the clues you have, and hope for a good score. As your lifetime score goes up, more blueprints unlock.

Ah, well that was a bit of an oopsie. But hey, at least I've proven I can fill the island with rocks

Got some decent work done over the weekend. I established a tile map, and got simple tile-based movement working with collision detection. The whole thing feels surprisingly non-clunky. I was afraid I'd have to dial in the movement for a few nights, but it worked out right off the bat. I could use a little more good luck like that.

The sprite is a placeholder, that you may recognize from my other project (Far Afield).

It's not exactly coming along quickly, but I'm getting there. I've got the map pretty much where I need it, minus some minor graphic tweaks, and have events (with stock player animations) for things like harvesting resources. Still got a long way to go...

At least the animated text boxes are working

Got some more events whipped up, but alas, I'm running short on time, and my workload (at the day job) just went into overdrive. Blergh.
There are more resources on the map, and I'm working on semi-random events that destroy a percentage of the resources. I'll probably have a short rumble and sound effect to warn the player that it's coming up.

Bottom line is I'm running out of time and need to pare back my ambitions on this one. But it's supposed to be a mini-game so in that sense, my original design was a total fail -- way too much work for what this compo is intended to produce. Although there's nothing stopping you from using up the entire month and blowing us all out of the water

Gameplay will be dialed back to this:
1. Explore the island for resources scattered around, and the gravestones of your ancestors.
2. Ghosts at gravestones will give you clues as to what resources you'll need.
3. Semi-random quakes will destroy resources at random, so you have to keep moving before it's all gone.
4. You can use extra resources to buy hints from the info broker on the island.
5. When you think you've got it covered, go home and build the right Moai for your true love.
6. Either you got it right, or you didn't. Game over either way.

That's still a big bite for two days, but I'm gonna give it my best shot. All the logical parts are sitting around, but I gotta draw a bunch of stuff and pull together the menus, etc, that eat up a lot of time.

I finally dug in my heels and got a solid day of work in. I've trimmed my project scope back to where I can just barely finish it tomorrow. I got the hint sharing mechanic finished, and ironed out a bunch of little annoyances in the movement, event handling, and text box stuff. I did a bunch of spriting for various things you can find around the island. This is truly the fugliest game I've ever created, but I really just don't have the time to spend another few days on drawing better tiles/sprites. I created new status and crafting menus (I'm working on the latter now), so you can see what you have to work with. The status screen also features a larger copy of the map, and will show your position, as well as other important locations on the island.

I should have jumped on this earlier in the month. Work severely impinged on my life the last two weeks. Lesson learned, as usual

DOWNLOAD: Compo Entry (Win32 build)

Keep in mind this was rushed, so I haven't balanced it at all, and it's somewhat unpolished. It may be impossible to finish the game. There are plenty of debugging keys still in if you want to cheat

I'll play-test this over the next few days, and post a link to an updated version with a little more polish.