The LD game jam start nicely at 9am in my time zone. However I have some personal stuff to attend and wasted 5 hours. Have to recover the time and try not to waste more.

Ok. Let's start. I will now try to use the blog post as a documentation of my progress and my work process. This is my first game jam so I will try to prioritize completing the game first and show my progress second. I was thinking of making video of my progress but let see how things goes. I will at least record my progress in the blog post and see how it work out.

First. Planning the timeline (Ideal case. Subject to changes.):

Day 1: Time:
24hr - 5hr(wasted) - 8hr(sleep) = 11hrs

Day 1: Tasks: 1. Plan 2. Interpret the theme 3. Brain storm.

4. Prototype.

Day 2: Time: 24hr - 8hr(sleep) = 16hr.

Day 2: Tasks: 1. Gather all references to make asset 2. Size up the final product. Basically decide how big the game will be. 3. List down all require asset. Or make quick placeholder then count them.

4. Start Production if possible.

Day 3: Time: 24hr - ?hr(sleep) = ?.

Day 3: Tasks: 1. Production Time! Crunch Time! Hope not to fall alseep Time.

Normally at the start of the game design is brain storm and trying to understand the goal (in this case of a game jam, the theme). However this is a game jam, time is short and easily get struck for whatever reasons.

Therefore I think it will be good to quickly establish an "Initial Game Idea" before thinking much about the Theme or Brain Storming. This is because if I can't think a good idea (or over think and jam up my brain) by the planned time, I have something to fall back on to proceed.

The "Initial Game Idea" may not be practical, good, it may also have lot of problem. But that is what the Prototyping is suppose to fix. Some time the initial idea may be the best idea because it is generated without thinking of restriction and it is something that I want to do before I thought of other things stop me from doing it.

Ok so here my Initial Game Idea:

1. The player woke up in a space station and found everybody else are gone.
2. The space station solar panels is block? not facing the sun? Malfunction?
3. The space station is either: a) Losing power. If power ran out so will be the life support. b) has lost all power. Player is in a space suit running on battery and won't last long.
4. The Player will have to save himself by saving the power and solve the power problem and get help.
5. Some gameplay ideas are: a) Talk to the computer to gain control of space station and find ways to conserve power and solve problem.
   b) Find battery to run suit, tools and machines in order to survive. c) Operate a mech to destroy a rouge robot that is trying to crash the station onto Earth. Mech need battery to move and fight.

So, that it. Up to now, 1.5hr have past. Next lets see how the Theme can be interpreted. This is the interesting part (or boring to some). Do you know Power is Force times Velocity? Power is also Voltage times Current!

Ok, was distracted by some other gaming stuff for 0.5hr. Now back to the game jam.

BTW: Check out this particular post if anyone need more idea. I will be breaking the theme up to as many interpretation as I can think of. Which can lead to many interesting idea. I may not be using these idea as I still tend to like my initial idea. But the purpose of this exercise is to help me expand to more ideas and also backup idea which is more practical to make into a good. So let dive into it.

Let's break down the Theme: Running out of Power

There are 2 main things: "Running out" and "Power"

Running out:

1. The more general interpretation is simply means some thing is getting lesser and lesser till all are gone.t
2. Another way to interpret it is literally running (with 2 legs) out of a place. Example: player has to run out of a zone that is broadcasting power to a device on the player that is slowing killing him.

Power: This is more interesting. There are quite a lot of type of "Power" 1. Power is Force times Velocity 2. Power is Voltage times Current 3. Math: Power of (Exponentiation), Statistical power and etc. 4. Physics: Magnification power, Optical power, Electrical power. These actually can make interesting game idea.

Ok, now I am actually found that it is easier to just look from the Wikipedia. There are just too many for me to list. I will just list out some major "power" and you can look it up on Wikipedia.

They are:

Computing, Social Science, Politics, Power of appointment, Power of attorney, Power station and etc.

So this lead me to looking up on the Dictionary on the term "Running out". Turn out that there isn't! It all refer to "run out" instead. And there are more than the two I can think of. Here from google dictionary.

run out:

1. (of a supply of something) be used up. "our food is about to run out".
2. (of rope) be paid out. "slowly, he let the cables run out".
3. extend; project. "a row of buildings ran out to Whitehall Gate".
4. British: emerge from a contest in a specified position. "the team ran out 4–1 winners".

All right, turn out that this exercise is taking too much time. However it is eye opening to see that so many possibility from just these 2 terms. I can't turn any of the info into game idea as I have yet look through in detail of all the possible meaning from this two terms "Running out of" and "Power" and already 1hr have past.

Therefore in Summary: Try to look beyond the basic interpretation of the Theme. This will expand the pool of idea. Also look up on Wikipedia and Dictionary rather than just counting on my own knowledge. But don't count out your own knowledge and experience. Because from this exercise I only found 1 online dictionary that mention the meaning "running out of" as an action. There is also another way to generate ideas by disregard the meaning of one or more words of the theme and replace with your own version of meaning for the word/s. Example (a lame one): Escaping from a prison which it's name is "Power", Power Jail?

Anyway, I hope the above is of some help to someone. I now plan to explore the above for maybe 2 hr or so. I hope I can also Brainstorm at the same time as I am spending more time than I have planned. So I will be back in a couple of hours then I will finalize my game idea.

PS. I do realize that I am allocating a lot of time on researching the subject and on game idea. But the process turn out to be enriching so no regret if is it turns out costing me the game. I hope that I can learn more so to make some sort of tutorial on you tube in future.

Game Title:

Power Saving Mode

Tagline:

Alone in Space. Running out of Power. Will you survive?

Be back in 2hrs.

Hungry at Home. Need to Recharge. Will I fall asleep?

Last night I had decided the setting to be in a tight space station environment. However got stuck in trying to create a zero gravity first person movement.

In Unity I made a physics box with gravity off and have a camera attach to it. Next I try many different combination of how to move and rotate it. However controlling the movement is frustrating. It is also disorientating when the camera can view in one direction and the body move in another direction.

In the end I give up and import UFPS a first person controller. I didn't use it initially as I wasn't able to figure it out. Took me up to 5am in the morning to figure out how to use it. However still not really the zero gravity movement. I wonder why I wasn't able to before. I guess it is working under the time pressure. Was so tired I slept for 12 hrs after that. I guess I relax a while more and continue tonight.

No, that is not the title of my game. That is what happen to me. Had to sleep due to the pain and when I woke up, it already past deadline....:sob:

This is start of my dev log. 2 Days before the start of LD41.

Currently, now in last stage of theme voting. Therefore one of the theme listed will be the final theme.

My plan is to brainstorm ideas for each theme and start making a prototype for each idea. However I found out quickly that making a prototype for each idea simply doesn't work as there are too many ideas.

Therefore the plan is the list a few ideas for each theme and further expand the list when final theme is announced.

I have a simple way of brainstorming idea from the theme. From the theme, first list out what game component ideas there are base on the theme. Next list out the game ideas from the game component list and the theme. I found this way is more effective than just get game ideas from just looking at the theme.

I have this concept of combining Fighting Game and RPG (see concept demo video below). I do not know whether it can be done in 3 days as I only have very basic movement and hitbox code base. The RPG part shown in the video is fake to just show the concept. I also need to redo all the art as the ones seen in the video are bought off an asset store. I have no story in mind yet. I will try my best to complete it as I would want to see the feedback to my concept. I really want to develop it into a commercial product but these two genres is more incompatible than most people would think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8maMj7H208s

Just made base male and female model for my game. Still a long way to go. Not in game yet. Hope I can get the same shading.

Just finalize the game idea. Nothing to show yet.

My game idea is a fighting game, to win, you have to push opponent to edge of the stage/level.

Starting to work now. Hopeful have something to show in a few hours.

Just checking when the next LD and it already started! I am literally minutes into this. So the theme is "start with nothing". Quite fitting as I really starting with nothing in mind.

So I guess the easiest idea is a hero start with nothing and gain stuff while fighting enemy and lastly confront the final boss with the "correct" stuff. OK, I can start with that.

Hey the theme seem easy. I hope less people will be bitching about bad theme this time.

Hi, here is my game idea for Ludum Dare 46:

The player is a "fragile" "power source" in a "garden" of a "ruins" in "an abandoned world" building an "automated" robot by "Connection" of "outdated technology" but it keep "decaying" so need to "keep it alive" with only "1 minute to prepare" but suffer "side effect" of losing "Momentum" however the player eventually found out it was just a "dream" and this game is a First Person Shooter but the gun is a tool to build the robot thus "turn a violent genre non-violent".

Thank you.