I waited up till two for the theme announcement, then decided to sleep on my idea. I wish I hadn’t now as there have been a couple of posts containing similar ideas since, but I think I’m still going to press on with mine as I think it has enough unique components. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts if they think otherwise, but I imagine lots of the submissions this year will have similar gameplay.

You’re presented with two small isometric maps, side-by-side on the screen. There’s a player in each map and your goal is to guide them to an exit. Moving the player in one direction will cause the players on both maps to move in that direction, which could lead the other character into obstacles etc.

I’m weighing up whether to have a heaven and hell theme – where pushing a rock into lava may produce a cloud in heaven to cross an obstacle for example – or a first world/third world theme – where using an electrical appliance may cause a water obstacle to disappear in the third world. I think the first idea is more achievable within the mini isometric map format. The latter feels like it would need to be on a SimCity-like scale.

Anyway, that’s it for now. The last isometric game I built was ten years ago – http://rob-bell.net/2009/03/rob-o-tronic/ and https://github.com/robbell/rob-o-tronic – so time to dust that off for inspiration.