So here is what I came up with:

BIOSPHERE (working title)

A 2D simulation game where the player controls 3 aliens who are trying to create LIFE IN SPACE. And then harvest it. >:D

The aliens each have one unique ability: One can beam stuff up (gathering resources), another can use those resources to alter the biosphere of a planet (so something can live there), and the last one can blow stuff up.

Progress so far:

I planned on re-using some "engine" I wrote a while back based on artemis-odb, but the latest version no longer worked with my project and I decided to rewrite my code to use ashley instead. It went really smooth and I can start implementing gameplay systems now.

Also, I drew the aliens:

For now, I will be using them as static images, but I structured their layers in a way that would make it possible to convert them to Spine skeletons and animate them later.

To be continued...

Update #1

After the first week of coding I am quite happy how this turned out so far! Here is some in-game footage:

https://gfycat.com/PertinentDesertedGenet

Camera

Finally, I could use the smooth camera system I wrote years ago in an actual project! I had to port it to an EntitySystem for Ashley though.

Physics

Box2D, naturally. The aliens use simple circle shapes for collision detection, the planet has one as well. I am using collision filtering to keep the aliens from colliding.

Steering

The movement of the aliens is built using gdxAI's Steering Behaviors. The currently active alien uses Arrive to follow the touch/click position, the inactive aliens use Arrive to follow the active alien while simultaneously using Flee to keep them away from each other:

Alien switching

Just a simple scale animation, but good enough for now.

Demo: https://gfycat.com/BabyishTenderDwarfrabbit

The Planet

For now, there is one planet with 8 settlements on it. The settlements continuously produce the "Humans" resource, which can be harvested by the blue alien. There is a maximum number of humans per settlement though. The settlements can be upgraded by giving them "Energy" using the yellow alien. An upgraded settlement produces humans at a higher rate, but further upgrades require more energy. Her are the sprites I currently use for the settlements:

Alien abilities

Yellow alien: Give energy - implemented, but needs some kind of visual effect

Blue alien: Abduct humans - implemented, but also needs a visual effect

Red alien: Laser Beam - TODO

That is all for now, see you all at the next update!

Update #2

Time flies, and the deadline is approaching - so here we go with some progress:

Menu/Title Screen

This is my title screen. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Gameplay

I managed to get a lot of the core mechanics done:

1) Made a beam-effect, which is drawing a trapezoid with PolygonSpriteBatch and a semi-transparent texture.

2) There are now asteroids randomly spawning around the planet...

3) ... and they can be destroyed using the red alien's beam, revealing Energy resource inside that can be collected.

4) I also implemented a timer, so the game actually ends at some point :)

Next steps

Almost feature complete! There are just a few things left to implement:

- A Game-Over screen, saving the highscore

- I am looking for a loopable music track to play in the background. If someone wants to get their music in this, shoot me a message!

- Tuning the gameplay parameters like the human resource generation, energy consumption or asteroid spawn rate.

- Not sure about sound effect, if there is time I will try to get some sfx implemented at least for the beam ability.

The final sprint is on! I hope to see you all at the next update which will hopefully be the first release version!

Update #3

YEAH - just released the first version of the game! Here is the game's page: http://semperhilaris.itch.io/biosphere

A detailed post-mortem will hopefully follow in the near future, but now it is time to get some rest I guess ;)