Hello all, this is my first game jam. I am a senior studying computer science at a four year university with a concentration on AI, Robotics, and Gaming.

The game I want to make is a Tactical Role Playing Game (TRPG) akin to the Fire Emblem series. My goals for the game jam are to have one playable level with a boss, 1-2 minion types, and 1-3 playable unit types. The units on both sides will be able to move and attack. Clicking on a unit will show their movement and where they can do damage. Game is over when the boss is defeated or all the player's units are defeated.

My current implementation allows the player to select a friendly unit to see their movement range; I used a Dijkstra Map I learned from my AI class to calculate that. The player can move the unit to the selected square if it's in the movement range. The player can pass the turn with space bar to an enemy AI who just passes it back for now.

Since I've been solely focusing on the mechanical side of it, I haven't come up with who the player controls or who the player is fighting. What units should the player control and what units should the enemy control? I am open to suggestions :)

EDIT:

I've decided on vikings vs knights!

Being busy with university has limited my free time to work on the project; however, I am happy to announce that as of now attack ranges are implemented, different terrain types are visually implemented(movement calculation for it doesn't work yet), and the enemy unit can be attacked! In typical TRPG fashion, the attacker goes first, then if the defender is still alive after the attack, they retaliate. Next goal is to get the terrain types mechanically implemented for the movement calculations. If all goes well, a proper AI who fights back will be next.

Since the deadline is coming up, I tried to keep the scope flexible, so if I can just implement one class per side and a unique boss unit I'll be happy.

Terrain types are mechanically implemented for movement calculations. It was actually quick to implement, because before when I was calculating distance I just added one to the previous. Instead of one now it just the movement cost of the terrain. I have two arrays, one for the name of the sprite and another for the movement cost. Been thinking of using a different data structure like a struct for simplicity though.

Implementing the new classes are pretty easy so far, as each class is really just different stats at this point. There's no level up system or skills to be acquired due to time constraints unfortunately.

The AI does take their turn now, they just don't move. If a player unit is near them, they will attack the unit with the least health in their range.

Next goal before I submit tomorrow is to get the AI to move to attack. Lastly, this is what I have been looking at, since I am not an artist:

So after getting the AI to move I'm going to swap all this for actual graphics!

The AI move now but only after I fixed a bug with the movement code. I have discovered that I am spending a large amount of my time tweaking the movement code. Below demonstrates the difference in the code.

Notice how now the blue tiles representing an impassable river as well as other units now block the movement of characters, yet the red tiles represent the unit can attack the tile. This effectively was important to implement because it gives strategic options like blocking off choke points to force favorable fights.

I think it's time to finally make the game look presentable now that the hard technical stuff is figured out. I am quite pleased with the movement code now.