Coded in BlitzMax. Press F1 for help. Hover the pointer in the lower right corner of the screen to show the button for changing the difficulty. F5 switches between windowed and fullscreen modes.


Original is the game uploaded at the deadline.

Fixed is the latest version (appx. 2 days following deadline) with bugfixes, fixing of significant gameplay balance issues, and correction of AI behavior. (Though the difference in AI appears large from the outside, the difference in code is not significant, as most of it was already there and just not being used properly thanks to being tired and not having anyone available for playtesting.)



21 minutes after deadline: Bugfix; caused some items to become impossible to unlock

65 minutes after deadline: Fixed an issue where help messages did not always show up as intended.

20 hours after deadline: Heaps of bugfixes and a couple minor gameplay tweaks. Details: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/04/26/floatation-bugfixing/#respond

24 hours after deadline: Corrected a couple more oddball AI issues.

25 hours after deadline: I think the AI is finally working correctly now. The AI takes up a huge portion of my code, so it's an absolute nightmare to debug, I tell you. I play it and I say, "Hold up a minute, it's supposed to be ____ing!" and I proceed to change a line or two. "Great, it's doing that now, but not ____!!" -- so exciting.

44 hours after deadline: Made a small AI tweak (it was previously ceasing to purchase more people once the population hit ~500, leading the player to an irritatingly easy victory) one item now costs $100 more as an improvement to balance, and fixed a typo in one of the help messages. Also, the easiest AI setting is now just a smidgen more difficult than before.