There was no work for me today, so I decided to start thinking about what I'll be doing for the comp in a more serious way.

I already have the basic idea. I'm making a platformer by the looks of things… but that's OK. It's been ages since I've made one, really.

I'm making a few decisions early on that will affect my work greatly later on. One of these is to not talk about the game itself.

I'll be releasing screenshots, talk about the engine, programming and so on… but I want the game itself to be fresh on release, and not hyped up.

Engines

I have three engines to choose from. Exile Engine, Game Maker and Unity.

I've decided to steer clear of Unity for this competition; its 2D functionality is pretty bad, and I don't have the time to invest in coding the functionality I'd be needing.

Game Maker and Exile… both have pros and cons.

I always want to try work with my own engine… but I always seem to have more to add to it; I never seem to be able to finish the damned thing.

That doesn't mean its unusable. In fact, I gave it a bit of a test drive yesterday.

While some of the 2D functionality has been ignored for a couple of years in lieu of the 3D features, enough functionality exists that I can probably put a game together in short order.

On the other hand, there's Game Maker.

It's pathetically easy to use… and incredibly easy to break. While it has a good focus on 'rapid' development, it also has some horrible quirks that I keep on running into when creating a game.

The short list includes: Scaling, audio, room editor and collision detection.

Anyway… my plan is to see what state my engine is in by Saturday. If it's not in a worthwhile condition, I'll use GM from the outset.

There are a few minor fixes and features I wish to add to my engine for it to be considered 'usable'.

This includes:

> Fixing some of the 2D code to work again. Not too much trouble.

> Add scaling properties to config files.

> Switch to a key/value pair based config file.

And that's about it. Nowhere near as much as I had initially thought.

Unless I factor in external scripts, that is. In that case, add "bind core engine classes to Squirrel" to the list.

But that's turning out to be a case of implementing bindings as I need them.

Design

Without giving away anything… I've already come up with around 50% of the game. It includes one core gimmick, utilizes a style of gameplay similar to one of my favourite games, and will have simple art.

Not necessarily "NES" art, just "simple" art. Custom palettes, limitations be damned when I feel like it.

Otherwise… I have a 'story' mapped out. Protagonist, antagonist and support characters.

Also started sketching a few ideas for enemies, bosses and items on paper.

Can't wait for the start of the comp :P

Other stuff

I've been playing a ton of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead recently. It's a post-apocalyptic roguelike with nearly as much depth as Dwarf Fortress.

That is a gas station. Those blue lines on the ground are gasoline I poured out.

I have a lighter.

Things ended spectacularly, completely disregarding the fact that I died. The fireball was glorious though. :3

Some of the more interesting features include:

> Rigging up a shopping cart with an engine and watching it go.

> Crafting tables/chairs out of stuff you just broke.

> Opening the back of a truck wondering what that smashing noise was and getting

swarmed by zombies.

> Molotov Cocktails

> Crashing a big truck into a gas station.

> Finding your past bodies littered around said gas station.

> Building Rube Goldberg contraptions out of scrap.

Well, that's enough out of me.

I'll leave you with this: