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Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I will have time to finish this before the deadline.  I did end up creating another prototype from the perspective of the escapee rather than the pursuant. I drastically underestimated the time I was going to have to work on this over the past few weeks and perhaps didn't prioritize the time I did have as effectively. In retrospect, I spent too much time trying to narrow down my idea before starting, as well as putting more effort into some of the random map generation than perhaps was necessary for a game jam. But ultimately I'm left with a humble shell of game that doesn't as of yet even really mesh with the theme it began from. 

I hope to do better next time around: either by working alongside someone else or simply taking this year's lesson to heart and learning to better safe-guard my development time.

I look forward to playing the amazing games of the talented and dedicated individuals who actually finished their games this year. Kudos.

Today I worked on getting a prototype up in Unity, just so that I could start playing around with what I wanted the gameplay to feel like for the first segment where you're pursuing escaped prisoners. 

1. I got a rudimentary First Person controller up and running. (Technically this was done Friday)

2. At least for now I have a very random map generator

3. The prisoners can at least try to escape (though there pathfinding "AI" is still completely random)

4. Shooting the escapees makes them disappear. Once lore is established, they'll probably be stunned and delivered back rather than just evaporated...

5. I figured out how to make paintball splashes (which was easier than I thought it would be)

6. The prisoners (and the player) have colored trails to make "tracking" easier

7. I added an overhead map view to make things a bit easier.

If you want to try out the current prototype, you can play it here: https://belisarius87.itch.io/the-great-almost-escape

Any feedback is appreciated.

Hi all! After bouncing around from idea to idea, I think I've finally settled on using Ephesians 4:32 verse. Thinking and digging into the idea of kindness and tenderheartedness, I was reminded of a story about Dirk Willems who was a Dutch Anabaptist who according to Wikipedia who is "most famous for escaping from prison and turning back to rescue his pursuer—who had fallen through thin ice while chasing Willems—to then be recaptured, tortured and killed for his faith." It's certainly an extreme act of kindness, but that's what makes it memorable. It also seems to fit nicely in a game format.

While I don't feel compelled to stick with the actual details of the Willems story, it serves as a nice framework for me to think through. I still need to nail down the actual settings and mechanics, but I'm currently planning on splitting the game up into to separate portions. In the first, you're the guard pursuing someone before getting stuck and being rescued. And then (perhaps you let the escapee escape or you felt guilty after turning him back in after he saved your life), something changes and now you're on the run, and this time your pursuer is in danger. What do you do?

Mechanics-wise, I suppose I could do a simple endless runner, but I'm not certain that's the route I want to take.

Graphically this time I think I'm going to try to go for a low poly aesthetic. I've been meaning to really begin grappling with the 3D blender pipeline, so this seems as good an opportunity as any.

I still have a bit of design to do before I can really sink my teeth into the coding and the modelling, but at least I finally have a direction.

If anyone has any good reference games that do pursuit-action sequences really well or gameplay suggestions, I'd love to hear what other people think.

Yep unfortunately that is the case. As the deadline approached, features and levels were dropping left and right. On the other hand, for the first game I've finished in such a short amount of time, I'm not too disappointed. I learned quite a bit.

Hi all!

I know I'm super late to the party, but thought I'd throw my hat into the ring even now. 

My verse: 1 Peter 2:21 

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

I've always loved 1 Peter and eventually settled upon the theme of suffering, particularly that of suffering for others and suffering for doing good. While I came up with a variety of narrative approaches to that concept, I really wanted to try to work with something more driven by the game mechanics and turned to my gaming experiences with things like Dark Souls and even Super Mario World levels. Particularly Dark Souls gets the portrayal as a challenge, and some locations really do feel like you're just suffering through them. But in both cases, you're suffering through them so that you can experience the sweet triumph of victory, there's nothing like the self-sacrificial love of Christ there. So that was one thing I wanted to rectify.

The other portion from the verse that I initially was working with, was the example set by Christ detailed in the following verses: "He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (22-23). I really wanted to work that idea into my entry as well, so I decided to deviate a bit from my Dark Souls example and removed the ability to retaliate. 

If you want to take a look at what I have so far, I threw a build up. Any feedback is appreciated.

http://students.cs.calvin.edu/~mjm87/CDN_Speedgame/

At the moment, it's definitely a bit of a struggle to gather all the triangles without dying (which I suppose lends itself towards the suffering theme). However, I'm definitely not satisfied with the notion of suffering for someone else rather than just grinding through to victory. I'm also not certain how fun it is, but we'll see. I have a couple of ideas left, but we'll see what all can be implemented in time. (Procrastination for the win)

I can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!