I'm entering for real for the first time. I've had some aborted attempts in the past, without actually submitting anything, but this time I'm all the way in.
I'll be coding in Common Lisp(!), using cl-opengl. Graphics with GIMP. Music (if I can manage it - I'm no musician) with Sunvox.
o7
At first, I didn't like the theme. But I started reading some of the posts here and thinking about all the different ways to interpret "Running out of space" and writing them down. Then I got some sleep. The ideas started to come gradually this morning, and now I've picked one that I think I will be able to make into a fun game.
Here's my list, feel free to steal my ideas!
Popular restaurant. You are the Maitre'd and you have to assign diner groups to tables.
Disk drive is getting full. You need to delete some files. But which are vital code? Replace drives in racks in a server farm.
Hospital beds
Orbital debris. You are a space janitor, and you have to clean up orbital debris for satellites and rocket launches. https://www.space.com/24895-space-junk-wild-clean-up-concepts.html
Car parking spaces
Big family in a small house. Clear out rooms or save for an extension.
Running = Smuggling. in space.
Literally running. Spacewalk race?
Running = Managing. Space delivery company?
Running = Creeping/growing tendrils from space
Personal space. You have to navigate a crowded street/tube/etc without maxing out your proximity meter or anyone elses - otherwise you/they lose it!
Outer space.
Inner space. Nano entities inside a body.
You are defending against enemies that consume the ground you are on. You need the ground around you for resources.
When you fail, the path you took is closed off.
You are getting bigger. You have to escape before you get stuck. Might work with Inner space.
I've already spotted some of these ideas in the feed - great minds think alike!
I've settled on a game idea I'm tentatively calling "Beaver Pitch". You control Barnaby the beaver who has to defend his dam from naughty neighbour beavers who keep stealing logs for their own dams. You have to run up to them and bop them with your tail, while rebuilding parts they have destroyed. I'm thinking that you move faster when you're on your dam, and slower when you're swimming, so the more wood they steal, the harder it is to keep the dam maintained.
Here's a mockup: 
I've got a simple map, movement and collision detection going. Now to make the bad beavers come and steal the logs! I hope I have time to polish the art tomorrow, because it's all a bit brown at the moment.
I've made more progress than I thought I would, but I have a lot of work to do tomorrow to get this playable and looking nice. Good night and good luck!
I'm not making as much progress as I need to, but I'm still confident I can submit a playable game! Just got to get my head down and make it possible to stop these thieving beavers from stealing all the logs.
It's not really finished, but it's better than nothing!
Looking forward to playing all the games!
I uploaded a timelapse video of my screen while making Beaver Pitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5lTF7UjUAg
Watching my own video (before editing) showed me how much time I wasted just browsing the web instead of working on my game. Next time, I'll try to be a bit more disciplined and use some time management technique like Pomodoro.
Hope you like it!
I tried to come up with some ideas based on the theme. It’s a tough one!
I've only managed to enter once before, and I'm really excited to try this time. Keeping the kids busy over the weekend means I probably won't have enough time to enter the compo, but hopefully I can manage something for the jam.
This time I'll be using pygame, bosca ceoil, bfxr and gimp.
I like most of the theme suggestions, so I'm feeling good about this one!
A slow start, because I'm in the UK and the theme was announced at 2am for me. Between getting the kids up and dressed and getting them breakfast, I've been trying to come up with as many ideas as possible.
Please feel free to use any of these if you like:
Delivering mail: * Postman doesn’t know his way around, has to deliver lots of parcels, addresses are pathological. This is the first thing that came to my mind, because I was chatting to our postie yesterday about this exact situation! * Remake of the Sinclair Spectrum Mailstrom game, where you have to deliver mail but street is full of zombies/baddies. * You are a grocery app picker. You have to fill orders for delivery. Orders come in quicker and several at once. * Bad courier service. You have to steal expensive items to make profit, throw away parcels to save time, but maintain success quota or else you’ll be sacked.
Delivering babies: * Hospital maternity ward is full and babies are being born rapidly. Difficult not to be in bad taste/triggering. * It’s calving season. You are a vet. Have to stick your arm into a lot of cows.
Delivering votes: * You are a campaign manager and you have to increase votes for your candidate. Run ads (including smear campaigns), book interviews, coach your candidate, leak dirt to the press, organize doorsteppers and town halls, tv debates
Delivering souls to the afterlife: * You are Charon, delivering souls across the river Styx. They need to pay for passage. Lots of souls, only one ferry. Living people keep trying to sneak onto your boat. Oh no, there’s been a war/plague/earthquake! (thanks to my wife for this one!)
My working title is "Stygian Express". The idea is that Charon the Ferryman has to collect souls of different types from the banks of the River Styx and deliver them to the correct parts of the Underworld - heroes go to Elysium, sinners go to Tartarus and normies go to the Asphodel Meadows. I'm not sure how to make that fun yet. Maybe the sinners cause problems on the river bank, so you have to move them quickly, but Tartarus is the furthest destination.
I'm trying hard to focus on getting the gameplay done and not use up all my time on drawing sprites, but I couldn't resist doing a quick sketch. Anyway, I've got plenty of time to think about it, just not so much time to sit down and implement it!
I knew I wouldn't have enough time to make a compo entry, but I am quite pleased with my progress for the jam. I have a much clearer idea of how the game is going to play, and I caved on not drawing any graphics, so I have a screenshot (this sadly doesn't show the multiple levels of parallax I have going!):
The game is going to basically be a Paperboy clone, with Charon speeding down an infinite river Styx, picking up souls every so often and flinging them into the correct parts of the Underworld on the opposite bank. The targets will be reasonably tricky to hit, and there will be obstacles in the river to avoid. I think that will make it fun. Anyway, time for bed!
I've only managed to spare about 15 hours total out of the 72. Think twice about having kids, folks, they really eat into your spare time! /s I'm not going to finish before the Jam ends :( but I've surprised myself with how far I've come. Let's see what I can manage in the Extra time...
I'm going to try really hard to finish this time. I've only managed it once before and I've just failed twice in the last few weeks to submit anything to Pyweek and Pygame Community Spring Jam :sweat: I think the trick is to keep it simple!
