Due to another code jam last night, I started the compo pretty late, but at least I got myself a game concept and started to get a working prototype.

Introducing Subsea War! The gameplay is probably not new, controlling a submarine under the sea and battling another submarines, using torpedoes, depth charges, or missiles. The only twist for it is both submarines cannot see each other. They have to use sonar ping echoing across the walls to find the possible presence of the other.

I’m using Phaser together with ROT.js for a randomly generated underwater cave.

So far this is what I have:

It has gone pretty slow. I have spent too much time trying to convert corner walls to be diagonal so that the player can use as a reflective surface. But I got that in.

Also added some lighting for the player’s submarine.

Diagonal wall and lighting

Seems like I have a long way to go, but not giving up yet. Will continue tomorrow morning.

Got the basic stealth factors in: Bouncing trail of the sonar ping, the enemy becomes visible as the player comes closer.

Basic gameplay in

However, there is no HUD, no AI, no battle, no winning/loosing scenes, …. Therefore, I decide to move this to jam, just to want to see the end of this project, even though I’m not really sure I’ll have time tomorrow, since… it’s Monday

The current version can be seen at: https://sntran.github.io/Subsea-War/dist/index.html

Unfortunately, I could not finish the project, even in the jam. Not much to excuse, better improve next time.

What I could accomplish was having the map with diagonal walls, and lighting between player and enemy subs.

Sonar ping almost worked, but I could not manage the rotated edges of the walls, so only straight walls can light up. Hitting the enemy works fine though.

Could not get the two extra weapons as planned, even though I think it would be easy to add.

No AI at all, which is the most disappointing things. Other stuffs just kept me from implementing even the basic AI.

Overall, learning the whole Phaser engine was a little rough experience for me, especially when I have to deal with P2 physics.

Though incomplete, you can still see the prototype at https://sntran.github.io/Subsea-War/dist/index.html.

And congrats to everyone who participated!

As a friend, Steven and I are working on a game using Elm (http://elm-lang.org), we think it may be cool to try our learning in LD48. So if real life does not get us, we will be participating in the jam. As this is a new language, we want to see how far we can push it, using little assets as possible.

* Language: Elm, compiled to Javascript

* Editor: Sublime Text 3

* Graphic: Hm, Photoshop or whatever we need.