Dev Log 1:

Hello everyone my name is Graham, it is my first time competing in a game jam such as this as well as my first time working with LIBGDX. I know I am starting quite late in the competition however I believe I will have enough time to finish my project.

For the game I have decided on a resource management concept inspired from games such as Gods will be Watching. You will manage a crew of five who are trapped on board a damaged space station; you must contact the outside for help and manage your time and resources to keep your crew alive. Additionally you must get help before the 30 ^th day on board the station as the nuclear reactor powering it has become unstable and will fill the station with radiation beyond that point.

As this is my first time using libGDX I have spent a great deal of time going through tutorials and other resources, but now I feel comfortable enough to start work on the game. One of the first things that I did for this project was plan out how the UI would look for the player. I am not planning on having very complicated graphics as most of the game will happen through an event log.

Example of the Planned Interface:

I have also finished working on some of the graphics required for the game such as the portraits for each character which can be seen here:

Additionally I added in some parts of the planned UI after making the portraits:

I will begin work on adding some functionality to the game as currently it is just is a splash screen and a third of a hud. The next things I am going to implement will be assigning jobs to each crew member for the day and deciding who will eat that day.

Dev Log 2: Urgency and Struggle

One of the major problems that could be the downfall of this particular project is if while playing the player does not feel any form of urgency while trying to accomplish the goal. My original idea was to just have rescue come and pick up the stranded crew at the end of the 30 days. However I felt as though this wouldn't create the experience that I was looking for. So in order to solve this issue I decided to go the route of having a disaster that would happen around the end of 30 days which would wipe the crew out, as well as having the player be the one who ends up arranging the rescue from the station. These two ideas create a situation where simply surviving off the rations scavenged from the station and maintaining the water filter would not be good enough to win the game, instead it makes the player assess their situation and decide whether they should try and contact help or focus on trying to make sure they can survive the next few days; which is exactly the experience I want to create with this game.

I have worked on adding additional art to the project such as finishing the title splash screen the event log and the various job options as well as the next day button.

INTRO SPLASH:

CURRENT HUD:

I need to adjust the for the job selection so that they do not take up quite as much of the screen or overlap the next day button. I have it set up so they only appear when you are trying to set someones job.

The event log is hooked up properly to display text about the well-being of the crew as well as information about the power, water, heat, and distress radio of the ship.

The player can assign jobs to each of the crew members to accomplish through the day; most of the crew members have specific advantages when working on specific activities except for the Captain and the Janitor. The Captain is a jack of all trades master of none sort of character, he is better than average at doing most of the tasks however he doesn't excel at any of them. The Janitor on the other hand is not very skilled in mechanical engineering, medicine or scavenging through the debris of the station and will have a much lower average ability to accomplish any task assigned to him.

Once I have finished polishing the roles of each crew member I will post a list of their strengths and weaknesses.

The next task I will be working on is balancing the internal numbers of the game and creating random events that will have various effects on crew members such as injuring them, making them sick or hurting their mental well-being. As well as making the jobs that have been assigned actually take effect on the station.

Also one other thing I have done is create a new portrait, I'm guessing I don't need to say what it's for. :)

Dev Log 3: Death and Breaking points

There are going to be two main ways to lose crew members. The first of which is good old fashioned death, which will occur if they go too long without food, become injured and go untreated, or get sick and don't rest to get better. The second way is a bit more interesting, as the situation gets worse and worse individuals will snap and refuse to cooperate with the rest of the crew and leave to try to make it on their own which will result in their demise. There are ways to prevent people from reaching this state usually through letting them take a day to rest from working, or making sure the heater is well maintained to keep the environment comfortable.

The features that I managed to implement recently were the deterioration of the survival area as well as death of crew members and the reduction of their mental state. If left alone the water filter, generator and heater will all begin to fail, bringing their own problems with them. As the water filter fails the quality of the drinkable water is lowered increasing the likelihood that someone will get sick. When the heater fails crewmembers will lose morale as the environment that they are in will become extremely cold. And finally when the generator fails it will create a power outage that combines the effects of the water filtration system and the heater.

When a crew member gets sick from the drinking tainted water they can continue to work but their health and morale will drain, the only way to remove the sickness status is to rest for day or two. However when injury occurs it is a much more serious situation, if the crew member goes untreated they will most certainly die within a few days. The only one who can remove the injury status is the doctor.

I have also implemented the distribution of rations to the crew, after the player is finished assigning jobs they can choose who will get to eat that day, if a crew member goes without food for too long or doesn't eat very often they can start to starve. If you let someone starve for 3 or 4 days they will perish and the crew will have to continue on without them.

I feel I have finally gotten the game in a position that I am comfortable with as most of the main features I wanted are implemented, so now I can start work on extras like random events, balance, audio, and fixing my spaghetti code.

Great game! Game mechanics are solid although the game starts very suddenly and could use more of an intro. After pressing F1 I understood much more and was able to successfully survive on my 3rd try. Well done on game balance! It's definitely not easy to win but once you figure it out it is very possible to win although not guaranteed with the random events.