I know it is a bit of a late start, but I couldn't make it before the beginningof the jam, so I'll just have to make due with this. Last year I had to finish the game after only 1 week, so this shouldn't be much different. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, the first challenge was to decide what kind of game I was making. Last year I made G-dungeon, which had some problems, but overall it was an OK puzzle game. (Except for the difficulty which was just absurdly hard. I just went back and had to use my own help files...)

This year, I wanted something different, something with more movement and life. Because of the limitations, a fast-paced game is near-impossible to pull off, so I was left with two main ideas: A rougelike, or a turn-based strategy. In the end, I decided to do both. I always had the problem of overscoping my games, so I'll try to keep this as simple as possible.

With the genre and style in mind, I had to create the actual game mechanic. This had to be good, because it needs to give a lot of complexity in a small, confined space. The game itself is played on an 8*8 grid, each tile 8*8 pixels, and the mechanic I went with was a basic gravity-changing one. The setup is simple: There are enemies and traps that try to kill you in their turn, then you can squish them in your turn. Should give enough depth to the game, and it's not too complex.

For today, the first task was to create the basic game window using Game Maker 2, so here are the results:

I just wanted to test the pixelation in work, so by the next update I should have the basic mechanics done.

UPDATE 1:

Now, the main player control is done, with some visual effects:

This move really had to be powerful, so it doensn't seem like the character is just moving. It needs to have an inpact, where you can believe it could finish off an enemy. For that, I used 4 different effects: A smoke trail, fading player sprites behind the player,  screen shake and a landing "dust impact". I also added a few test targets just to take a look at how it feels to destroy something with this, and for now, I'm happy with the results. 

As for the camera, controlling it with the mouse works for now, but it gets too unstable with bigger maps. I might have to think about a multiple-room map system if I don't figure out something soon.

I also made a small tileset, though I'm not too satisfied with that one. Not too bad of a placeholder though. Also, I have no idea what the player could possibly look like and I can't just leave it like this, so there are still enough things to do.

UPDATE 2: 

Today, I have mainly just focused on the art and tiles, and though they are still no masterpieces, it was the best I could do. The spritework still needs to be redone, and I have to come up with something for the player, but that can still wait a little.

I also added these direction changing "vector plates", and just put them all over the place. If I have enemies (which should hopefully be done by the next update), I will have the main game loop down, but I still need to tinker with the camera and rooms a bit first...

UPDATE 3:

The last two days were not as productive as I wanted it to be, but I still managed to get some progress down. Mainly in the form of programming two types of enemies, and getting everything done with the camera movement and room transitions. The two enemies use the FLOW algorithm to get tho the player, but they don't need a super powerful pathfinding due to the relatively small size of the room. (gray -> 4 directional movement, white -> 8 directional movement).

The sprites and effects still need some work, but since there is so little time left, I thought I would put together a list of things I wanted to get done before the end:

• Sound effects and music
• Menu
• Levels
• Some more enemy/obstacle variants
• player death
• enemy-obstacle interactions
• saving progress
• autotiling

These shouldn't take longer than 4 days, but It might be a close call, so I think I can do at least the bare minimum. Most of these tasks can easily be done, but the music and sound effects are something I'm not so familiar with. Also, though the art is far from good, it has already taken up way more time than it should have.

UPDATE 4:

Well, this went considerably faster than expected... Actually, I have done almost half of the things I mentioned in the previous update. All the main sound effects are done, I added 2 more obstacles, a player death- and checkpoint system, enemy sprites and also auto-tiling for the walls. If all goes well, I should still have time in the end to add more enemy and obstacle variants to the game. Things are starting to look interesting!

UPDATE 5: 

Small update... Now that the main mechanics are done, I am mostly just set out to complete smaller but nesessary tasks such as auto-saving, a few more enemy types and a dialog box. (Of course all this without any of the spritework or sound design, because putting every task you don't enjoy to one day definetly doesn't get you demotivated or burnt out...) Well all that remains for the last 3 days are the music , a story and some levels. Should be fun :)

OK, so I'm in a bit of a good news/ bad news situation:

Good news! The half of the first level is in a playable state! You can try it here.

Bad news: I just had the first play-test of the game and a few things became clear to me: Navigation is hard(So I quickly threw together a minimap), and that I still overcomplicated the level. The latter is easier to fix, but the first one is kind of a problem. Any help would be appriceated, because I can't seem to find a solution.

UPDATE 7: Crisis averted! Yay!

After giving it some thought, I made some changes to make navigating easier. For example, now switching between rooms is slower, and there is no more complicated 2D layouts. It's all just a row of small rooms, which is a fair compromise. Also, I'm about 2/3 done with the levels, so by tomorrow everything should be done. If everything goes according to plan that is...

UPDATE 8: Final update. The game is out!

Altought the end was a bit rushed, I feel like overall this was a good project. I learned a lot in terms of project management and now I know where I have to Improve. But most imprtantly, It was a good time. Thank you for everyone who organized this event, And good luck to all participants. I hope I can have the same good experience next year!