Given I live in the UK, I went to sleep around midnight and woke at 4AM to check the theme. I figured going back to sleep would allow the brain to chew on ideas...

I ended up dreaming about Theme Hospital. Which wasn't all that useful except that the isometric RTS vibe stuck with me. As I woke I pivoted my thinking towards classic StarCraft and it's resource gathering SCVs. It's a bit of a stretch...but they gather and deliver...right?

With that in mind, I then wondered if I could achieve a bare bones RTS in three days. Code-wise, I'm about 80% confident, which is just the right balance I think. Leaning on events, command pattern, NavMesh among other things. The missing 20% accounts for things I'm less familiar with such as mousing objects on the field and working with a flexible screen resolution. I usually default to 720p, given the genre I think it's more appropriate to allow for the full screen real-estate here.

Design-wise, I think this'll be one of those figure-it-out-along-the-way kind of ordeals. I've just got to make sure that the gameplay centres around gathering a thing so that you can deliver that thing elsewhere to folks in need. Perhaps it's a distant team or command centre that's made a request for resources which you must fulfil.

Just keep it small. Way way small. And maybe...just maybe this'll work out. The worst case scenario: I could keep working on it as part of Extra. Regardless, it'll be a fun learning exercise as I've yet to include an RTS in my portfolio.

Wish me luck!