This was my original idea before I decided to spend day 1 trying to come up with more. Each player controls one little guy, and you roam the map gathering resources, building buildings and fighting. It’s like an RTS in that you tech up, expand, scout the enemy, etc. but instead of having a whole army you just have the one unit.

You get one ‘base’ building to start with, and you have to return to your base to make stuff from the minerals you gather. If you die, you respawn at your base. But if your base gets destroyed and you die, you lose.

I think this is a better idea than my other one (a side-scrolling RTS) because just having the one unit removes a surprising amount of complexity. In a normal RTS you need a little bit of AI to help you manage your units since you aren’t controlling them directly. But here, you don’t!

I’ll go with this unless I think up something better this evening.

Also I did some pixel sprites. I don’t normally do pixel art, so this is another fun adventure. Lesson 1: 8×8 pixels is not enough to draw a convincing humanoid.

Just added the first type of building: a shop where you can trade stuff for other stuff. You can’t build these; they’re scattered randomly around the map when the game starts. If you find a good shop, you’ll want to secure the area so your enemies can’t take advantage of the great deals.

Now to add buildings you can actually build, and finally turn this thing into an RTS.