While @goffmog does the work of actually creating a game, which we've decided is best described as 'Reigns except in space with cosmic terrors and resource management,' I'm busy writing out the associated text, pondering how provisions should operate in this setting, and [redacted] [redacted] [redacted because they're not quite coherent thoughts yet.]

Also, have a puppy:

Of the many interstellar tribulations you had anticipated facing, this was not one of them. An alien lifeform has taken over your ship, and it is a thing of seething villi and grinning mouths, its buzzsaw whispering growing louder with every room and crewmate that it devours.

Save yourself.

Save your colleagues.

Most importantly, save the cute animals.

Sadly, there's not a drop of artistic talent to be shared between @goffmog and I. But that's okay. 'Breathing Space' is a card game, and as such, we're trying to get away with making use of limited animations and free vector art. On the programming front, it looks like @goffmog's succeeded in developing the beginning of a card-flipping animation engine and is now refining his efforts.

Meanwhile, I wrote doggos:

1)Enamoured of naps, silk blouses, and other dogs’ chew-toys, Ronaldo is the consummate canine hedonist. His only flaw? Acute flatulence.

2)Deeply philosophical even for a dog, Sadie is haunted by impossible conundrums: what precisely defines a ‘good girl’ and how can one know when they’ve achieved such an exalted status?

3)Bella is the perfect example of what every space dog should be: courageous, even-tempered, and clever enough to play four-dimensional games of fetch.

4)Despite the name, Bull is not a very big dog. In fact, he is a very, very small dog, so small, in fact, that he is occasionally mistaken for the resident chinchilla.

5)Born to terrestrial parents, Luna never quite developed a knack for living in space. Instead of pirouetting elegantly through the air, she dogpaddles through the zero-gravity parks.

6)Brutus will eat anything: bacon, celery, 3D-printed veal, the detritus of last night’s Sunday roast, stale pastries, books, shoes, circuitry, dice, the cartridges for your security team’s plasma guns.

7)Once the property of a bad-tempered gambler, Engine has now become the spoiled mascot of the engineering crew. In exchange for their adulation, Engine spends all his time defending his namesakes from mice.

8)If someone could just harness the kinetic force of Sunshine’s tail wagging, it’d be possible to power the ship forever.

9)Some animals are built for love and others are built to inspire fear. War’s owner was clearly hoping that their pup might grew up to be intimidating. Spoiler: he didn’t.

Because we are old (and because we need to be sane for our jobs on Monday), neither @goffmog nor I have any intention of burning the midnight oil. As such, everything's being approached in a somewhat regimented fashion. @goffmog is currently working through the core loop: we're hoping to be able to implement story cards, token cards, and ensuing --

I probably should explain how this works first, huh?

Gameplay-wise, Breathing Space functions a lot like Reigns, or Tinder. Except instead of being matched up with royal events or royal assholes, you'll use the swiping mechanic to navigate through a spaceship overrun by alien lifeforms. Where it differs from its inspirations is here: Breathing Space is, as one might have expected given the theme of this Ludum Dare, all about managing space.

There's a deck of cards, each of which presents an event that you must deliberate upon. For instance, you might find yourself choosing to investigate the weird shape stuck inside an air vent or carrying on. Depending on the circumstance, you may end up with a variety of TOKEN cards: animals, passengers, provisions, status cards, and restorative items. What makes this all interesting is that you only have 12 slots to fill with cards. Once those 12 slots have been filled, the game ends and you're shown the appropriate ending.

So you're going to have to be smart.

Every Passenger will require 1 provision. If they don't have provisions, they'll not survive the escape. Every Animal requires 1/2 of a provision pack, meaning you can pack more animal friends in there than people. The status cards are interesting; they can take the form of 'stress' or 'injury'. If you end up with either of those cards, you'll need an appropriate way of destroying them. Otherwise, you'll die.

This is an oversimplification, clearly. But that's the basic idea of what we're endeavouring to do. (I am going to die writing these event cards.)

For those of you in the audience wondering, 'what about the Monster? How is THAT being represented?'

The answer's 'stay tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuned.'

Success! @goffmog met the legions of Programming-Very-Quickly-On-The-Weekend and has limped away triumphant. We now have the scaffolding of the game, but it isn't quite done yet. There needs to be vastly more content, story cards (my duty) that make use of the fact we can, in fact, declare prerequisites and build chained events.

But I thought you'd appreciate seeing what we've got so far.

There's no real point to it just yet (although I'd argue that any game that allows you to pick up dogs is fundamentally a Good Thing), but we're getting there.

http://www.goffmog.com/ld42/