I'm finally making a devlog for my jam entry! Been a little busy with work and life but now I have a block of time to log in all the happenings on my entry so lets a go! [cracks knuckles] I've named my entry Cave Escape for the time being and I'm pretty sure it'll be called exactly that by the end of it. Simple and gets the point across.

Plot: You wake up in a cave of sorts, parched and only getting more and more dehydrated, you trek on and must find a way out before you die.

Main mechanics: Put simply, this game will be a bare bones metroidvania and I do mean barebones (mainly to keep the scope of the game small and my sanity intact). To keep the player moving with a sense of urgency, I've added a water gauge that continuously depletes over time to push them along with sources of water to refill their water and think about what their next move will be as these water sources will be very few.

An optional mechanic that I want to add if I have the time: A cool thought I had while making the prototype is that it would be pretty neat to have ghosts or hallucinations come out as your water meter reaches the breaking point as a punishment for not managing your water levels like a good player! What do you peeps think? 

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What's done so far: To keep myself on track and not spend time on things I might trash later I used an app on my phone called Project Manager, it's pretty simple and with it I've managed to make most of the main things and not start on features or things not important.

I've made the platforming, water gauge, attacking, health, most of the basics i could think of...

As well as a basic enemy template and the spheres as keys to open the last door in the game. Also somewhat of a water leak type deal (Still gotta tweak the rates of losing water and gaining it). But that's pretty much it! Not shown is moving room to room and an end state of the game after exiting the last room.

I think it's safe to say that from now on, besides creating more enemy ai and other small little details, I can start working on the graphics and levels. Wish me luck! I feel good about my progress, I think I can finish this in time!

For today's update: Created a basic tileset to pretty up the place a bit. Added another basic enemy stingray that drones from right to left. Decided on the character being a froggo~ I think it's pretty suitable. I had a pretty tough time managing the frog sprites but after some debugging and seeing what was going on with what I've managed to correctly have the walking and jumping/falling sprites work!

Good progress for today imo and next up is more level and tile creation!

I had the morning to continue the project and I'll take any free time to make progress as the deadline is fast approachin'

I've created a two more simple tilesets, basically recolors for the two other areas the player will find the key crystals to open the exit door. (I also added a little sparkle effect to give it some life in the crystal sections~

The other area will be a lava section where the player has to traverse well... lava. I made the lava slowly rise up and down to make it seem a little better (a solid block of color made it look so bad. ) Also made the player jump up when hurt by the lava a la mario 64 so I don't have to bother with water-type gravity.

Finally I made a couple of other simple enemies. Realized I need to make a hurt sprite for the player and a knockback type dealio to give some kind of feedback for getting hurt.

 First enemy was a slime that slowly approaches the player when nearby. A jumping spider that still needs to be tweaked for maximum deadliness. The toughest to make so far, the sine wave bug thing that jankily flies around. Its behavior is pretty lame and really predictable but it'll do .

That's it for now! Gotta get ready and look presentable!

Didn't post an update last night as I was pretty tired but here we go~ What I got done last night!

• I finally changed the spear sprite into something more interesting that a red bar. 
• Finally gave the player a hurt sprite, though the way I implemented it makes it look a bit silly when gliding on the ground lol
• Spotted a small bug where the leaping spider gets stuck (dang it)
• Added doors that open with a spear attack.
• Made some decorative tiles! Mostly based on coral to give it a bit of an ironic twist.
• Sound Effects! I added some sound effects, very nes sounding ones to the players actions. As I'm making more rooms I'm implementing them throughout the game on enemies and actions. Already the game feels a bit more alive with it. What I'm concerned about is the music. Everything I've come across just... doesn't fit my vision but time is running out so I might just bite the bullet and use something under CC.

• Created the Crystal Boss, since all the exclusive enemies here were all insects it only made sense to make the boss a bug.
• After shooting a couple of crystal rock-eggs at you (Maybe I should make those spawn little flies or something) She goes down to refuel on eggs that are one the ground (Which I will add as a background later).

• Also made the Lava Boss, inspired by the dragon boss from Zelda 2. This one was a lot more complicated than the Crystal Boss.
• He shoots three bouncing eyes (Which is fixed now, those platforms on the wall were getting in the way)
• After which he charges up for a mighty laser beam going in your direction.
• Starts cooling down then goes back down after a bit and pops up in a random hole of the three.
• Seriously my dudes making this boss required so much coffee (at least three mugs).

That's it for last night. I have a day off today so I suspect I'll be getting most if not all of the map done today and have a working prototype at the end of today!! Exciting~

Recently got off work and fulfilled all other obligations so now it's time to start wrapping it up! But before that I must update you peeps on what has been done!

I didn't get much done the other day visually but what I did get done is create all the rooms in the game! (I still need to place tiles on them and decorate them all) But never you mind all that! After that, I need to create a splash screen with some basic menu options! I won't have a lot of time to work on this tomorrow or at all Saturday so today will be the last day of considerable work time to put into this. That being said time to put on my working pants and finish this game-u!

This is looking really cool! You've made so much progress in a short time! I really like the idea of hallucinations when your water meter gets too low.

ahhh i love that you've put a tutorial into your environment! it's sometimes hard to think of those things when youre juggling gameplay programming, design, art, etc. so it's really awesome to see you putting that in!