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Maybe I should change this to Cybersecurity since that is my day job and about all I have time for these days.  I have made some progress on the oracles, trying to make the results thematic to school tensions between social and scholastic, with some weird events thrown in just for a bit of strangeness.

I'm also playing around with building the map as you go, so that if it's 11 cards, you lay those out as you explore them and the value dictates if it is next to the previous or if it's perpendicular.  I want it to feel like Hogwarts where the staircases move around and there's new secrets around every corner.

Current Gas (for this project): 4...getting risky.

This is fantastic!  Look forward to trying it out.

I was working on just a display for the tracking sheet, but I love that yours does the cards too...and looks way more pro! 

Part of design is culling things that won't work.  I initially wanted a gameplay loop that cycled between school and battle sim.  I'm considering just focusing on the school part (at least for the gamejam).  If i can get that working well, then maybe I can add the additional gameplay.  I always bite off more than I can choose.

School Supplies List

Please obtain and bring the following materials to the first day of class this semester:

1. A set of 52 Psychic Slates (or a deck of regular playing cards)
2. Six Sided Randomization Cubes
3. Tokens
4. A holographic tracking sheet (or printed is fine if your holodeck is being repaired)

The main mechanic that will act as Stress is going to be "Study" (or Scholarship, something like that).  This is a game about trying to make it through Psychic school alive.  This game will be a lot more forgiving than Dead Belt, first you cannot die in it (though you can "wash out"  of school), second running out of gas (or study in this case) results in a failed semester, but doesn't fail you altogether.  You start at an "A" and if you get to "D" average overall, then you wash out (untested...just the first idea).  Your GPA will be one of the trackers on your character sheet.

Unrelated side note:  Stardew or Sun Haven as a BotB style game might be awesome.  I wonder if you could keep some cards in the same area (like your home plot) but let others change each game.  Not going to work on that, but just thinking on that idea.  I like the idea of some cards being persistent in the world.

Ooo neat!  I hope you can get that done...I loved the first book and the idea is awesome.

More for my use than anything to keep track of development but also hold myself accountable.  Please feel free to comment, iterate, suggest, or challenge.  

I'm developing a gameplay loop that has two distinct phases.

1. School phase - The card layout represents the ever changing physical and psychological landscape of the the psychic school.  Similar to Hogwarts, the rooms shift and change and you might find fascinating things you were not expecting.  This will use one oracle to drive the school day.
   1. Tension comes in normal school variety - Social anxiety, trying to stay on top of studies.
   2. The risk is not dying, but washing out of school early
   3. The exploration is from the studies and learning new powers (not sure if these will manifest into specific powers or just be power as a resource).
2. Battle Sim phase - This is similar to Ender's game, but unlike Ender, you are not special and you will not win.  I almost want this to be roguelike in that you keep losing until you are powerful enough to win.  The loop would be go to school, try not to wash out, gain more power to sometime be able to win in the battle sim.  Maybe that's like graduating.
   1. Tension is more combat and psychic.  There is still social anxiety in that you are part of a "team" and maybe will get blamed for losing or another member doesn't like you.  [I feel like all my old school anxieties are coming out in this...]
   2. Exploration should be how to use your power to manipulate the room/game to finally win.

In between each of those you will update stats, gaining resources during the school phase, challenging those resources during the battle phase.

And because I procrastinate more than anything, a doodle that might develop into the cover image...

Slow and procrastinate-y.  Do a rough draft of a cover image before even finishing the design?  Sure…why not.  Lol

I'm trying to build a game called Universitas Psychica which I would describe as young, untrained Warhammer 40,000 Psyker Librarians going to school in a Harry Potter-esque psychic university with battle school teams and colors like Ender's Game.  Yes, I know that's weird.  

Question:  I'm assuming you cannot just wait and kill time in a location until day/night switches.  Is that correct?  You'd need to take one of the actions, which means often you might have to move around to get back to a spot in the opposite clock time.  

I've been thinking about your comments on synergy.  I'm not really a game designer, more just have visions of things I want to play and often don't know how to make that a reality.  When I dream about this one, I see the synergies as the draft.  You pick a character that can move another character fast.  Then you draft a combat powered character, so you use those two to  speed down the field and crush.  Or you pick characters that work well to push enemies off the field.  I saw it as this kind of pushing and pulling of characters around the board.  How to make that...not sure.  Thanks again for the comments!  

All true!  Actually, I’m just happy for one element to resonate as “rad’.  I’ll take it!

Thanks!  I foretold you’d say that.  :)

Yes, optional on defense cards.  Exactly so on saving vs spending. 

Good question on cooldowns!  I like your idea!

I’m seriously impressed with the amount of detail you were able to build in such a short game jam!  Really neat idea with looting islands from what I’m assuming from the mood board is airships.  This is one I’ll have to try out to really get it, but I’m definitely intrigued!

This one really captures my imagination!  Really like the different combinations...feels like part Moba (destroy the totems) with neat elemental synergies.  Also any game that can be set up on a chess board.  Great entry! 

Really like this!  Love the synergies designed into the game at each level and great idea on combining and separating elementals of the same type.  Great entry!

Neat entry!  I like the synergies from building your warband...you can have models with incredible speed that will zoom down the board!

Neat idea!  I’m definitely hoping you develop this idea further, cause I’m digging the hacking+sports vibe.

love the solo rules using noise tokens!  I’m a sucker for solo rules, even simple ones.

This is like FTL, the tabletop tank version.  Really neat and love the synergy created by player perk and operational actions.

Love the theme of this one!  Quite engaging.  This just seems like it would be fun to play and I look forward to trying it.

I'm a total sucker for hacking games, so really looking forward to giving this a play.  Almost seems like a competitive puzzle game mixed with robo rally.  Lots of neat potential here!

I like the idea that the synergy is the commander joining the different companies to influence them.  

Thanks for giving it a try!  Appreciate the kind words!

Neat entry!  Thought I was doing a bang up job and then June killed many citizens...ending with 579 deaths.  Good job!

I think this is a neat approach.  I like the graphics and the interactions.  Couldn't figure out which medicines to give without any info on them, but I played through a couple of times and used a bit of deduction.  Great entry!  I totally would NOT like to be a nurse...too stressful!  

Fantastic!  Good show for a solo entry!

Well, I've got a lot to get done at work for the rest of this week so I've submitted my game.  It's so far from complete, really a sketch of what I had in mind.  Truly enjoyed the process and thanks to the organizers and mentors for their great suggestions and insight.  If I've learned anything from working on my third game ever it's to start with a small, achievable scope.  I'm pretty sure I'll forget that lesson for the next game jam.

Good luck to all participants!  I look forward to playing your submissions.

Lots of work meetings today, so not a lot of progress.  Made some really simple houses and 3d assets, which is probably as good as it will get for the jam, but hope to come back to it and really focus on the look and feel of the game after.

Ack!  Only 4 days left!  I've really bitten off way more than I can chew, but pushing forward...

This weekend I got the daily news system implemented.  I wanted to have competing newspapers, but have settled for 1 newspaper with the left column usually more factual and the right hand side more editorial and negative.

And, I implemented the business UI.  Here  you can see the progress of each Factory (Candy, Screams and Scares).  You can also purchase upgrades (which costs work units).  It's a super simplified tech tree, but I've left it open so that each business can have it's own tree with each upgrade having a different effect.  Right now the upgrades just improve the efficiency of the work being done.

With only 4 days left, I'm going to be leaving a LOT undone, which is unfortunate.  Still learning this fun hobby and enjoying the heck out of it!  The next four days I'll focus on:

1. News articles.  Short articles based on what is going on to put on the daily newspaper.

2. Titles and some kind of music/sound.  It will be quite sparse from an audio perspective...running out of time and I don't have a lot of skills there.

3. 3d Houses and Factory.  Super simple...won't be at all how I imagine them in my head, but need something there.

4. Final polish/clean up before submitting.

What a great learning experience this has been!

Ugh...just to continue the daily updates, today was rough from a “real” job perspective.  Hoping to catch up this weekend, to submit something exciting.

Started on the work/business model today.  This is going to be more complex than I thought initially to implement, but important for the minimum, so I'll likely be programmatically doodling on this for the next couple of days...leaving me with only a few days to clean up the UI, write up a tutorial and create at least basic assets for buildings and props (they might look dreadful...and not in a good way).

In an interesting turn of events, my college age son just tested positive for Covid yesterday (he's doing well, thankfully) so now I want to complete this project even more and maybe give some bit of perspective through a silly game.

Long conference call this afternoon got me through finishing the Curfew decree...once done with work or school they go home instead of milling about the city.  Also fixed that problem with the masks in the screenshot above.  It was a quad trying to do some funny things, so I reduced down to triangles and it looks much better.  Added a bit of clarity in the UI so that you know what you have set as a decree (notary style stamps from the Mayor's office).

Had some excellent feedback from the mentors over on Discord.  I'm working on implementing some of those ideas in my game.

No way I'm going to be 100% in 8 more days...still too much to do.  Graphics will be one of the biggest areas to suffer.  I just don't have time to make all the buildings and props that I wanted.  So, I'm focused on minimum viable product at this point.   In hindsight, I should have asked for graphics help.

Implemented the visuals for masks.  Still a bit funky, but will keep working on that when I can.  Would like to have more types of monsters (Mummies...swamp things...skeletons, etc) but will likely implement after the jam is over.

Here's some of our citizens, styling masks and not.  

Implemented the decrees system!  You can now tell your population that they must wear masks.  Of course, there's some willful monsters in our town, so some will refuse to wear them.  In the last test, 353 put them on, while 57 didn't.  Seems close to real life, what I observe locally.

Added a couple of monster types.  Won't have time to make any character assets, so I'm wrapping those capsules in some cutesy monster love.  Vamps and Franks go to school and work...

Had a bit more time today, so continued to refine the wandering.  Still a bit of work to do there, but I like the way it's working so far.

Made it so it appears people are entering buildings (when they reach the point, I turn off their MeshRenderer so they are invisible, then turn it back on when they leave).  

Started on a simple UI (the Mayor's desk).

Tracking the work via Trello: https://trello.com/b/07La0RxL/game-jam-monsterville-covid-sim

So much left to do, just to make it interesting...

This morning I've implemented "wandering with purpose".  Adults wake up and go to the work factory that is closest to their home, while kids go to the closest school.  They spend a part of their day there and then at the end of their school or job they wander around the town a bit before going back home.  All in 90 secs...per day.  This will put people very close together to catch Covid, but as the mayor you can shut down the schools and have kids do remote learning and you can close or limit the amount of people going to their job, but of course you aren't going to make any progress towards Halloween that way.

I'm starting to worry that the 31 day construct is going to make the model less effective because that second graph from yesterday.  Everyone's could be sick at the end of the month and that won't be exciting for the player.  The decrees should help, but jamming everyone into work and school will counter those too.  We'll see...I guess that's the fun of this.

And interestingly if you force everyone to wear a mask it looks like this.  Still a lot of people get sick over time, but it takes way longer.  Interesting since I'm only going to simulate 31 days.  But at least it gives your population more time to work towards the Halloween and you also can put decrees in to help as well.

Now to add some willful people who refuse to wear masks!  

Today, I've implemented ghosts and recovery.  I've found a new love...simulation modelling.  Never tried it before and I'm getting such a kick out of it! 

Ran through 31 days, no masks, no decrees (like curfew, staying home), everyone free to wander around and infect anyone.  Really neat to watch almost all of the population get sick and then start recovering.  9 become ghosts, so might need to review the fatality model, but maybe that's right.