Our goal for this one is to make a system for crafting magical spells. The idea is that you would collect runes which can be mounted to magical stone tablets. Depending on the runes you use and the order you place them you will get different spells. Actually, it's almost like a super-simplified coding language. So far we have the system for casting a spell, and a system of data structures for handling the runes. We can hard code spells that execute based on the runes the way we want, the next step is just to give it a nice UI and add a whole bunch of runes.

Here is a visual representation of how the runes connect, and after that, the resulting spell in-game. (Placeholder art).

Then, you can apply modifiers or runes which apply over a period of time. Here is a much more powerful fireball spell based on the spell shown above. As we add more runes, there will be exponentially more different spells that can be crafted. It will be important to maximize the value of your modifier runes to ensure the most power from your spells.

Due to the modifiers, this spell has a faster traveling projectile, has a larger AoE range, and has a larger fire elemental aspect (increasing its damage). And the fire trail rune added (a duration type rune) leaves behind flames as the projectile travels.

There are 5 different elements in this game. Fire, Earth, Dark, Lightning and Ice. Each one is extra strong against one other element, and weak to another one. Here is concept art (by Julien) showing the relationship between the elements.

The elemental alignment of an entire spell is calculated based on the elemental attributes of the runes that make up the spell. Since elemental damage dealt by runes such as the fire rune in the spells above are determined by the elemental alignment of the spell, when crafting a spell you will want to make sure the runes you use are compatible elements. In addition, depending on the type of damage you might deal more or less damage to particular enemies. Here is an example of shooting an Ice (blue), an Earth (green) and a neutral (gray) enemy with the fireball spell above, showing the difference in the amount of damage you can do. (These values are very WIP, we have done no balancing yet).

We definitely have a lot more things to work on, but I am personally very happy with the rune/magic crafting system so far. Making a UI for crafting spells will be difficult (as UI always is), and we'll need a LOT more runes. But runes are really easy to make now that the system is in place, and every new rune we add is automagically able to be used with any of the other runes in a brand new spell. After that we'll need a gameplay loop for collecting runes, the story, enemies/AI, etcetera. Some of that is planned, but I'll save that for another update later.

You'll hear from me or Julien sometime soon I'm sure. I can't wait to show more of this game!

The game opens as a mysterious near-disaster occurs on alpho's production line, and he is sent to have his alpha drive reset.
On the way to the reset facility Alpho see's a chance to escape, and takes it.

This is where the player takes over, and is tasked with guiding Alpho through a number of puzzle-based areas in order to escape.

Alpho is a genius of engineering, capable of crafting gadgets and upgrading his systems to overcome challenges. He can dismantle machine parts, use tools to destroy walls, use gadgets to deactivate drones and use stealth to avoid being detected.

He will need all of these skills if he is to escape the factory and find his way to freedom.

For this jam, I decided to go with an idea I had some time ago, a combination between Sokoban and Minecraft. In it, the player can move in a top-down view, pushing things around. Additionally, they can push items into chests and similar things with storage, as well as enter those storages themselves (likely to retrieve something). Finally, they can use items in order to break/harm things, repair things, or move stuff more easily.

On the first day of coding, I managed to implement basic movement and pushing a gray frame around. And yeah, an infinite grid in the background.

Next time, I'll work on chests and inventories, then probably on some rudimentary crafting and items.

Day One:

Since the theme of the jam is "combinations",  I think I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with it.  I'm currently planning to make a math-based roguelike.  The goal is to make it easier than the average roguelike.   I want children to be able to play it as an "edutainment" game, not unlike the old Number Muncher game for the Apple IIe.

I don't want to cover everything about it yet, but that's the basic premise.

Introspecion & Retrospection:

I've thought a lot about what I did wrong during the last game jam (where I made Sim-You-Later), and I've come to three major conclusions:

1. I tried to do too many things I'd never done before.  Since I still don't have a lot of experience, it's really easy to do that by mistake.
2. I coded things from the beginning of the game to the end, rather than coding the harder parts first and then attaching things like menus to them afterwards
3. I was self-conscious about my code, and tried to make it look nicer.  In doing so I wound up breaking several things, which probably would have been fine had I just left my code where it was.

So, to rectify that, this time I'm working from a "recipe" of sorts - there are a few good roguelike tutorials for python users, which I'm  following along for a lot of the boilerplate stuff (mostly getting the rendering engine up).   This will assist with parts 1 & 2, because I'll be working from a tested blueprint to help me figure out what the key features are, and it'll help me to keep in scale.

Progress so far:

At the end of the first day, I have a player moving around and the map generation is close to how I want it.  I'm still going to have to play around with it to see if I can get something I like a little more, but I have a map that WORKS, so for now I'm going to move on.  

My goal is to get the core of the game done by the 9th.  Then if I can get some people to test it on the 10th, I'll have 3 days to do things like debug and tinker with the map & AI to make sure it's what I want.  I still may not be able to get it perfect.  (I am, after all, still new to this), but I'd rather have a finish project than perfection in half of an unfinished game.

If people want to see the WIP code, they can find it at: https://github.com/Spitball-Sessions/JamCraft2