Brainstorming is officially over.
I have been prototyping earlier this morning some game concepts I had on my mind: https://www.livecoding.tv/video/libgdxjam-day-1/, to attract inspiration (not so much luck). After a walk outside (we have some really pretty landscapes where I live), I have reconsidered my ideas and have finally decided the following plan.
First of all, a technical note. The game is not mobile-first. Mobile-second maybe, if I figure out that later. But I'm going to assume that my player has a keyboard and a mouse. This makes things easier because now I don't have to deal with fatty fingers, screen resolution, readability of texts and more importantly user input.
This theme choosing is getting longer than what I expected (jeez, I'm so newbie on jams), so let's get to the point. I've recycled my previous ideas: black holes, going back to Earth, mazes--WAIT, didn't you say yesterday that mazes make no sense in space? Indeed, but let's talk about planets too.
My idea: the player is lost in space and seriously wants to go home. The Earth has send a rescue team on his way. Remember, the year is 2148, and space exploration is a thing. You get out of your house, pick your car and go shopping to Mars or to work at Jupiter. Our player is lost 3000 light years away from Earth. He must survive while the rescue team comes.
His tasks:
- Don't die.
- Protect his spacecraft from enemies. Enemies might be aliens or space bandits (of course there are!).
- Keep the radio link up. This is very very important. There are a few radio repeaters on planets around him keeping a radio link that lets he talk to the Earth. If the radio link is lost, he won't be rescued. There are a few repeaters. Just make sure that the radio strength is over x% (not chosen yet) and everything will be OK.
- Of course, to fix these radio links you must go to these planets. You land on the planet, do your business, go back to space.
These planets should have more things, I know, to take advantage of them. Some random ideas:
- Food and other survival resources. Grab food or you will starve.
- Spacecraft fuel? It has to be somewhere. Your spacecraft doesn't have infinite energy. (Just like in 2015, electricity companies wouldn't allow it :P).
I still have the door open to more ideas, but this is it.
It's 3:40PM, I have lost the count of how many times I have had the word "space" in my mind. I haven't even have lunch yet. Let me eat something, and I'll be ready to rock.