So, that’s it. I’ll be the first to admit that I did horribly from a competitive standpoint… I didn’t even really incorporate any gameplay. Still, this has been an amazing experience. I’ve learned a lot about how to balance the amount of time I spend on each facet of the game (well, in the future anyway). I also met a lot of very cool people that I’m proud to be associated with, and am looking forward to seeing where they go with their future projects.

Anyway, here’s the game entry. I’m almost ashamed to upload it for people to see, but I think it’s important to show that I participated, and use this failure as momentum for future endeavors. The game itself was done with ImpactJS (thank you @phoboslab!). The following tools were used:

• Komodo Edit (coding)
• Paint.Net (sprites)
• PyxelEdit (tiles)
• Weltmeister (level design – included with ImpactJS)
• Autotracker-BU (music)
• Sfxr (sound)

For my next competition, I believe I’ll avoid the story-driven approach and do something that can be picked up an immediately enjoyed. I also spent entirely too long on the art, but as bad as I am at pixel art, I’m quite pleased with what I accomplished. I will be continuing work on the game over the next several weeks, trying to incorporate a lot of features, as well as some fun, which it is clearly missing. Some coming features:

• Several aliens to interact with, each evolved to deal with varying aspects of the landscape
• Moral choices, branching paths, the decision of which tribes you will help
• Multiple endings; the choices you make will mean different things for the planet
• Running animations (just didn’t have enough time)
• Alien sprites
• A broader tileset
• An intro screen
• A better dialogue system

If you’re interested in future progress, I will be posting game updates on twitter @codesavage. Thank you, and good luck to all those who submitted entries!