As said in the title, this is going to be my first Ludum Dare. I dont know any Python devs doing this challenge. I might end up making something extremely simple and nothing to write home about. We'll see how this goes. I got energy drinks and snacks on standby.

This image is a rough sketch of what I wanted to implement. It will look much better than this once I get this game going.

This is one of the many background images I'm going to be using. Oh and before I forget, I'm going to be using the following tools.

Pycharm

Pygame

MS Paint

text files

This is going to be a small rougelike, turn based, text based, 1v1 arena, kind of game where you spend your maximum life to buy stats, equipment, and spells. Suffice to say, this will not be a compo for obvious reasons. Would I be able to finish it? Find out when the JAM ends!

So in the first 1-3 hours of the event I was brainstorming what I'm going to make based on the theme. I've decided that I'm going to do a text based, turn based, arena 1v1 rougelike RPG. And the game will go something like this:

You are slave combatant destined to fight other combatants for the amusement of a higher power. Before you do battle however you have the option to shop for stat allocation, weapons and armor, or spells. The catch? Every time you purchase something regardless of what it is you lose a portion of your maximum life.

Every time you win a battle you gain experience and once enough experience is gained you level up every level up increases your maximum life and mana based on your stat allocation.

This game will be a balancing act between trading your life force in exchange for power. Overspending your maximum life could possibly lead to a quick death in combat.

Then I slept for about 9-10 hours. Afterwards I got started on coding...had a really rough start. Not a good idea to start this game jam if you haven't coded in awhile. I managed to breakthrough and made the most Basic of basic turn based combat system at the moment. I will be adding more to it as the event goes on. Ill be posting some screenshots throughout the 2nd day.

I spent a lot of time working on combat mechanics but got enough going where I can move on to other things. here's a screenshot of my current progress with the shop and combat. At the moment only stat allocations are purchasable and adjusting the opponents power. I'm working on the following Later tonight hopefully in sequence.

• Experience and leveling up

• Cap number of battles(Thinking 10 battles before being forced to face the boss)

• Buying items and equipment

• Buying spells.

• Consumables?!

• Make a good title screen and add lore.

ShopScreenshot.png CombatScreenshot.png

Obviously I will not be able to finish the Compo. The scope of the game is unfortunately too large to get it done in a 48 hour time span. However, I will still shoot for the Jam.

I cant tell if I want to submit the game as is then work towards a better submission at the end? or continue working on it until its finished just in time before the jam ends.

What do you people suggest?

I'm almost done with this game but I'm worried that I might not have enough time to implement spell casting and magic mechanics. I may have to end up scrapping it if it comes down to it. Also game will be horribly unbalanced especially at the start and 1st 5 player levels.

Also I'm running out of time to test stuff to make sure everything is working. I'm going to have to assume everything is working properly from here on.

I got pretty much 90% of the entire game that I wanted implement. It does have a sort of a cliche story beginning and end if you can call it that. There's a bit of stuff that I had to cut or leave out due to time constraints(you'll know when you see it). And obviously I didn't even consider adding sound or music. Source code is on Github just unzip and run it from your python terminal or IDE.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/santhos-arena

PS I really hate packaging games in python. This may be my last pygame/python project that I'm doing game dev on. I'm switching to Godot after this.

OK First off, I apologize for anyone who has downloaded the game only to be unable to play it. One of 2 things happened, I did not properly package the game or I've completely forgotten how.

Now for the explanation and What I can take from this: - Note to self and ALL developers Do NOT make an RPG game with complex mechanics during a Ludum dare event. It will take you A LOT longer to implement than you originally think. Because of this I somehow ended up spending almost an additional 2-3 weeks on the game After trying to submit the game back in early may.

• This is my first Ludum dare. Originally I didn't want to take part because I was under the impression that this event is for experienced Game developers, peer pressure talked me into doing it anyway. I'm not expecting any good ratings, nor am I going to be having any crowning achievements. The fact is that I've tried, and I hate leaving a project unfinished. This ain't my best but wont be the last project I'm doing. I've got more projects on the way that I wanted to create.

So After about 2-3 weeks of arduous work I think I finally have the game truly ready. Check it out.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/santhos-arena