Hello all,

I'm a few days late to the party after exploring a few ideas. I'm taking part in my first game jam and writing my first dev log, making it this far feels like an achievement to be honest. A little about me, I've been using unity on/off for over a year but never really created anything. Game dev is something I enjoy and always end up coming back to. I tend to over scope with my ideas, hopefully the game I have in mind is doable in 2 weeks. Speaking of...

The idea

Top down 2D game where you pick up cargo from a port and deliver it to a destination (most likely another port). Whilst delivering cargo you will need to avoid or shoot down enemy ships, who will try and sink you to claim the booty for themselves. Should you make it to your destination, you will earn gold, which can be spent on ship upgrades/repairs. Cargo missions will be optional, players can explore the sea/world if they so wish and take on enemy ships for fun. Be careful not too venture too far though......

Sticking with the theme, I aim to add in a day and night cycle. Missions pay double the gold at night, but sailing in the night sky comes with it's own risks and will soon be lit up by the cannons of additional foes!

Hopefully this sounds interesting. I'll report back with some progress.

Happy jamming

Update 1

Firstly, thanks for all the support. It means a lot.

The first two days have not been as productive as I had hoped, although I do only have 1 hour 30mins each night (at best) to work on the game. I thought the easiest part would be moving the ship and firing cannonballs but this has seemed to trip me up more than expected. I have finally managed to implement these, the cannons fire themselves when it detects an enemy ship. I might make this a toggle option for those that prefer to fire all cannons at the same time. I've included a reloading coroutine for each cannon and added a health system for the player and enemy ships. 

Over the next few days I think I'll tackle the enemy ships movement (shooting should be sorted, same script with the player) and start the day/night cycle. I have added an image of what I have got so far.  As you can tell, I'm no artist, and have gone for the MVP approach. I will be replacing the sprites with actual ships towards the end of the jam and adding a tilemap for the world design.

Happy jamming!

That's a really cool idea! I'm a big pirate fan so it feels made for me!

Update 3

I have made some good progress again over the weekend. I have managed to build a basic world using tilemaps, it consists of a vast ocean and 5 islands. I have also updated the sprites on the player and enemy ships. These changes did cause some issues to begin with but it turned out the issue was between chair and computer (me), I managed to fix them once I debugged the code.

With the world being built i have now added 4 quests/missions, these work and pay double at night. They all pay the same, if I get time I'll refactor the code so they have different pay amounts. 

"Pay out at night" I hear you say, yes, the day/night cycle has been added too! The ships light up at night but not as well as I'd hoped, I need to add a few lights to the edges of the islands as well.

I have linked up the auto fire ui, players get the choice if they want cannons to fire automatically or manually by pressing the left or right fire buttons. I also fixed a bug where enemies were shooting at each other!

Spawn and patrol points have been added. Enemy ships will randomly spawn at a random location and head for a random patrol point every 30 seconds.

Up next

I need to add collisions to the game. At the moment ships go over other ships and land, a bit emersion breaking.

Enemy ships do not rotate as they move towards the patrol points, this could do with being fixed.

I want to build a basic ui panel to allow players to repaire their ship or upgrade it using gold.

Finally

If you made it this far, thank you. There is plenty left to sort but I'm running out of time so I'll focus on the absolute important things for now and see how I get on. Below are a few screenshot of the new look.

Happy jamming

Final Update

This is the last update for this game before it is submitted, a big thanks to all those that have stopped by to follow the progress. 

Pretty much everything from the 'up next' section in the last update has been left, this was so I could focus on the critical features for the game.

I have created a main menu and loading screen, I spent way too much time messing with animations.

I have also added the fix and upgrades system. The player can repair their ship for gold but this costs money and takes 15 seconds to complete. I have two upgrades the player can choose from, again for the cost of gold. I really want to add to these but not sure I'll get time.

I've got so many ideas i want to add but only have until tomorrow night to make any final additions due to family commitments. Good luck everyone, I'm looking forward to seeing and playing your games Sunday!

SuperGamingNerd 👍 

It has been a productive last few days. I have managed to put the game together, add how to play instructions and build something secret that you will discover when you play. On top of this I have added in visual effects, sound effects, added to the upgrades, kind of a map (zooming out camera) and finally got the lighting sorted at night (previously worked but then wouldn't for a good few days). There are a few things I couldn't sort in time like collisions and rotating ships towards their movement points but I'm happy with what I have got.

I hope everyone enjoys playing the game, even if one person likes it I'll be happy! I'm looking forward to playing other submissions tomorrow. Well done to everyone who submits, it is a great achievement. A big thanks to anyone who followed and commented on this devlog.

Sail The Seven Seas by Super_Gaming_Nerd (itch.io)

24 hours after I submitted my game I have had time to reflect and thought I'd finish this devlog with a conclusion.

Overall I'm really proud with the progress I made with this game. Sure there are a few bugs but the amount of content I managed to get in, in roughly 22 hours development time total, is very pleasing. I seriously didn't think I would manage to get this far, I got off to a very rocky start where it took me two nights to try and get the basic movement functional and was thinking of scrapping the project. It is thanks to the first two people who left a comment on this devlog that kept me going, I'm not sure what it was but it lit a spark and I stuck with it and never looked back.

This is my first game jam and devlog, I don't normally put myself out there and do this sort of stuff, but I'm glad I did. To anyone who is in the same position reading this, believe in yourself and take that first step, join a none ranked jam like this and give it a go.

A massive thank you to all who have played my game or even just looked at the devlog, the support means a lot.