I've just done some basic groundwork.

Created a new repository with a blank project in it, filled in some basics, and started a psuedo-Design Doc to start fleshing out ideas.

We have the start of an idea that I might want to pursue - but I don't think it fits with any of the themes!! :P We are discussing it to try and see if anything else stands out as a fun alternative, but so far we've only succeeded in talking us more and more into this idea!

MTG Commander night tonight, so I won't get much more done, and then the GGJ kicks off tomorrow night so I'll be doing something else smaller over the weekend. I'll post again when I have more to show!

The repo is currently private  but I will make it  public when the game is done.

It was a wild weekend!

I got to hang out at Washington University, St Louis for most of it working on a game with my kid and a few random people I had never met before!

The game we made can be played here: https://axolstudio.itch.io/the-root-of-the-problem

You can see us present and talk about the game here: (We show up at about 10m) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1729483133

It had been awhile since I've been able to do an on-site jam. It was pretty great, but very exhausting!

Anyway, this week I'm turning my attention back to THIS Game jam.

I think I've settled on a game idea, and I've done a tiny bit of setting up some of the data I need to start prototyping.

The game idea is sort of a combination of 2 games. I have been playing a BUNCH of Luck be a Landlord, and then I recently saw a video of a game that was a simple civilization-y puzzle game (which I can't remember the name of), where you swap tiles around a board to keep your population alive and progress through the ages.

I'm going to try to combine these 2 games into a single entity where you have a "slot machine" with Icons representing people, and resources, and different civilization-themed things, and you earn different currencies by spinning which randomizes the Icons, and then you spend those currencies to unlock new icons, or technologies, and try to collect Science to progress from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

I have a bit more planning and back-end stuff to setup before I'll have anything to show you guys, but I will let you know when I do!

Some Progress!!

Just using icons from https://game-icons.net/ for now. My kid will be redrawing them in a cool style later.

Things are working out pretty nicely, so-far.... my logic to spin and then calculate the results is all working great!

I need to make it show what is actually happening (how many icons are created/killed/etc)

...and I need to figure out some balance on the population control... after 3 spins I have a population of a few hundred! Oops! 

Wow, trying to balance this thing is already turning into a headache...

I couldn't get the 'child' stuff to balance - the idea was that whenever 2 Humans were touching, they would add a Child icon - which takes 3 spins to become a Human.

After only a couple of spins, there would be so many Child icons in the collection that they pretty much drowned out any other icons from showing up.

I tried some things ,but nothing worked so I just took that interaction out - planning to just let the player spend resources to add Child icons later on.

Now, I'm trying to balance the animals. First, I just had  few 'predators' that would wound Humans (2 wounds = death) and have a small chance to multiply.

After a handful of spins, all the Humans would be dead and there would be tons and tons of wolves - even though I had their 'multiply chance' at only 10%/spin

So I added some Prey animals (deer, hare) and now I have the game spawn 1 animal at random each spin (with some weights to favor prey)

Then I also added 2 spears to the starting collection - when a spear is touching a human, it kills all animals it's touching that round. Each animal creates some number of Meat icons when killed based on which animal from 1-8.
Humans touching Meat on subsequent spins will destroy the icon and generate Food currency...

Now, spin ~5 times and there is SO MUCH MEAT - the humans are creating so much by killing animals that they can't eat it all!!

Maybe I should have predators kill prey animals and/or eat meat that is left lying around... but I was not expecting to have things so hard to control!

Well, back to the grindstone... 🍖

Turns out, the Meatpocalypse was due to an array not being cleared between spins!

Things are looking a bit more balanced now... working on adding the technologies you upgrade next!

Still chugging along!

I have added all the code for every Element and Technology used in Age I.

I changed some of the core HaxeFlixel classes to be able to include special icons inside Bitmap Texts so I can show my icons in the text like "Generates 1 [[food icon]] on Death".

I added Tooltips which work even if you mouse over an icon inside of a Bitmap Text object!

...and I've tweaked some balancing. Almost to the point where I can totally play through Age I to see if it works!

Once that's tested, I think I will start looking into the actual aesthetics of the game - probably choose another font and adjust ui a bit to look better (more whitespace, etc).

Still enjoying how this is going!

I couldn't sleep so I created a new BitmapFont for the game and implemented it.

I'm very happy with the font itself... but I'm not happy with anything else.

I am very bad at UI. I don't know how to space things out or add the 'right' amount of whitespace, or how to place things so they aren't crowded, etc...

I feel like everything is really badly laid out... I don't know... 

I guess I'll just keep working on balancing the game for now... 

I implemented haxe-ui (which I have not used before) in order to get my shop screens to work nicely!

Very happy with how they turned out, and way, way less easier than trying to code my own scrollbar and clip-screen logic...

Onwards and Onwards!

I am kind of at a crossroads with the game,

I feel like I have all the logic and the mechanics for Age I working and figured out pretty nicely.

I am working on a log that you can view between spins to review what happened.

The dilemma I'm in right now is: do I continue working forward? Add Age II? Come up with all the technologies, and new elements, and balancing etc? Or do I go back and focus on refining and improving what I have now? 

I'm still not happy with the overall look of the game - esp the UI - and I had always intended the icons to be placeholders... but on the one hand everything is 'serviceable' and 'good enough'... 

I'm just trying to come up with how to deal with future tech and mechanics and I'm seeing that maybe I don't have time left in the Jam to do all ~4-5 Ages that I had been thinking at the start... and I could put a 'Congrats! You finished this Demo!" at the end of Age I message and spend the next month refining things.

Or maybe I try to do Age II and have that message at the end of Age II...

One reason I kind of want to stick with refining Age I is that I'm struggling with some ideas going forward.

Such as:

Currently, you can buy new elements and they add to your Inventory - but at some point some of the Age I Elements are going to be obsolete... like... once we get to the point where there are Knights and Castles or Cars, etc, the Stone Axe and the Spear, and the Sling should not be around anymore...

How do I get rid of those older Elements? Do I have a technology that just removes them all once you learn it? Do I auto-upgrade them all?

In Luck Be A Landlord (one of my inspirations), you are adding a new Element every spin, and then there are ways to occasionally get a currency that you can spend to delete any item in your collection. Do I implement something like that? I'm just seeing that early on you want to buy lots of Spears to protect your people, but then in Age II when the wild animals become less dangerous (but now you have to deal with Bandits), and you have 10 Spears, but you learn Swords (or whatever)... I don't think I want to just delete all 10 Spears immediately... but I don't think the player wants them all still in their Inventory as they start adding Swords... and I also don't want to instantly upgrade all the Spears into Swords... and I'm seeing this problem being an issue going forward for lots of Techs/Elements... 

Anyway, if anyone wants to chime in with some thoughts and/or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

I might just try to push through some ideas on these Techs and at least work out what should be in Age II before deciding the next step.

I've added my log!

Now you can check to see what actually happened between spins!

Doing a little more cleanup and refining things, too... 

Upwards and Inwards!

I've decided to go the 'refine Age I' route.

I made some major changes the last week or so - removing some Elements completely (trees and boulders just give more resources when killed, don't create logs and rocks, etc.), and made a lot of tweaks to the costs of things.

I've also recruited the most cliché JRPG villain to play the part of antagonist: GOD HIMSELF.

He requires you to generate faith by offering a portion of your Food resource every spin, and does not like it if you fail to meet his quota. What a jerk!

My goal now is to do some more clean-up maybe make the UI a little nicer, and possibly add some more colors/textures... and then work on some sound effects, a Title/Menu screen, and see about implementing some music.

Want to give it a play and see how it's coming along (it might have some bugs/crashes in it still): 

https://axolstudio.itch.io/spinilization?secret=eUxkA6XMKzVUqOLYFdzUmy9xId0

I'm happy to get any feedback at all!

Inwards and Widdershinwards!?

Soo... I think I'm done with this!

I've finished up the Itch page, made some final tweaks to the game, and uploaded a Windows build if anyone wants.

https://axolstudio.itch.io/spinilization

I could keep working on this - there are a handful of tweaks and minor changes I could probably make right now to make things a little better overall. I could work on Age II... but I think I like where it is for now, and I can always come back later and make this a full game in the future.

I just feel like I've gotten 'enough' out of this game for now. Learned a lot of things that I want to apply to future projects, and had fun with it. But I really feel the need to get back to finishing up my Big Project: Bring It On! before everyone completely forgets about it - and I'm anxious to get back to working on it (which is better than dreading working on it which is where I was at the end of last year!)