Hi all! After bouncing around from idea to idea, I think I've finally settled on using Ephesians 4:32 verse. Thinking and digging into the idea of kindness and tenderheartedness, I was reminded of a story about Dirk Willems who was a Dutch Anabaptist who according to Wikipedia who is "most famous for escaping from prison and turning back to rescue his pursuer—who had fallen through thin ice while chasing Willems—to then be recaptured, tortured and killed for his faith." It's certainly an extreme act of kindness, but that's what makes it memorable. It also seems to fit nicely in a game format.

While I don't feel compelled to stick with the actual details of the Willems story, it serves as a nice framework for me to think through. I still need to nail down the actual settings and mechanics, but I'm currently planning on splitting the game up into to separate portions. In the first, you're the guard pursuing someone before getting stuck and being rescued. And then (perhaps you let the escapee escape or you felt guilty after turning him back in after he saved your life), something changes and now you're on the run, and this time your pursuer is in danger. What do you do?

Mechanics-wise, I suppose I could do a simple endless runner, but I'm not certain that's the route I want to take.

Graphically this time I think I'm going to try to go for a low poly aesthetic. I've been meaning to really begin grappling with the 3D blender pipeline, so this seems as good an opportunity as any.

I still have a bit of design to do before I can really sink my teeth into the coding and the modelling, but at least I finally have a direction.

If anyone has any good reference games that do pursuit-action sequences really well or gameplay suggestions, I'd love to hear what other people think.

Hey Michel, great to see you participating in this year's speedgame challenge! Looking forward to your entry!

I don't know what to recommend with games following what you're going for, but if anything comes to mind, I'll reach out!

Today I worked on getting a prototype up in Unity, just so that I could start playing around with what I wanted the gameplay to feel like for the first segment where you're pursuing escaped prisoners. 

1. I got a rudimentary First Person controller up and running. (Technically this was done Friday)

2. At least for now I have a very random map generator

3. The prisoners can at least try to escape (though there pathfinding "AI" is still completely random)

4. Shooting the escapees makes them disappear. Once lore is established, they'll probably be stunned and delivered back rather than just evaporated...

5. I figured out how to make paintball splashes (which was easier than I thought it would be)

6. The prisoners (and the player) have colored trails to make "tracking" easier

7. I added an overhead map view to make things a bit easier.

If you want to try out the current prototype, you can play it here: https://belisarius87.itch.io/the-great-almost-escape

Any feedback is appreciated.

Nice progress. Unity is great to get a game up quickly. Shaping up to be a good game.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I will have time to finish this before the deadline.  I did end up creating another prototype from the perspective of the escapee rather than the pursuant. I drastically underestimated the time I was going to have to work on this over the past few weeks and perhaps didn't prioritize the time I did have as effectively. In retrospect, I spent too much time trying to narrow down my idea before starting, as well as putting more effort into some of the random map generation than perhaps was necessary for a game jam. But ultimately I'm left with a humble shell of game that doesn't as of yet even really mesh with the theme it began from. 

I hope to do better next time around: either by working alongside someone else or simply taking this year's lesson to heart and learning to better safe-guard my development time.

I look forward to playing the amazing games of the talented and dedicated individuals who actually finished their games this year. Kudos.