Sorry for being absent on the site for a little while! TCAF was last weekend (I hope you all went) and I've been doing a lot of contract work. BUT,  I found the time to get my little game system running. While I still have to make art (and with just one session left, I'm pretty behind on the graphics side; I probably won't get it even close to pretty by next week), I know I'll have some time after to get it up to speed.

In the end, I wanted to focus on getting my game into a  playable state, and worry about making it pretty later. A hazard of building something from scratch, I guess. Other AGI memebrs did a combo of things, which was neat to see. Some modified full platforms, other's hunted for scripts and tutorials, and some of them changed directions all together. The range of styles and ideas are pretty interesting, and again the best part is just sharing our general process. What worked, what didn't, what made us nuts, what went smoothly, etc.

I spent a long time surfing through tutorials and forums, and I've come to realize that my math is insanely rusty. :) However, I did find that writing really detailed pseudo-code was a good way to understand what you actually need to get done. In the end, I still feel my biggest challenge has been dealing with both Mac and PC tech eccentricities. If I continue with this I may just try and port it over to Action Script 3 for the sake of having it run well on multiple platforms.

Anyways! Here's what I have so far: A map, a season, some raccoon babies you can feed (whom reside at your home base), some little things to hide under, and a some really mean cats that chase you around. Currently, I have no way for the player to fight the cats off, which I may try and toss in. While I probably won't have time to work in the skill level idea, I did manage to build the base for it if I decide to later on. All in all, I have something playable and working, which is what i was going for.

I decided to focus most things in the game on your health bar. Basically, everything in my game kills you over time, even the things you are meant to help protect. So rather than feed your pups food, you transfer your health to them. They happen to eat quite a bit, so you have to be careful or you can kill yourself by being too giving.

Winning the game is more about surviving; if you and your pups survive spring, then you win. If you or your pups die then you don't win. I've thought of adding the rest of the seasons, each with their own challenge, but its going to be a while before I can do that if I choose to do so.

Right now I'm trying to replace my place holder programmer art with something a bit more spiffy. We'll see how far I get by next week. :)

Over and out.