Reviewing games live at http://twitch.tv/ferricphoenix! Going for about two hours. :)

Going live on twitch, at twitch.tv/ferricphoenix! We'll be playing a bunch of Ludum Dare entries, continuing our Final Fantasy VIII analysis, and ending with a few more reviews! Hope to see you there ^^ Submissions are open, come get your game reviewed!!

When I'm not needlesly inflicting crunch on myself for pain and glory, I work in Godot on a data heavy caravan sim game. My regular project is a really Resource intensive project, and I'm pretty well practiced at data structures in Godot, plus my art isn't phenomenal- this seemed like the best use of my resources.

The idea is that you're playing a Mage Lord commanding units to build arcane relays that you can use to cast your magic in battle, using the concept of "Signal" from those relays to dictate where you can and cannot cast your magic, and power your buildings. The end goal is to spread your signal to your opponent's Mage Tower, and destroy it.

I am fairly certain I can make a hot seat multiplayer version of the game relatively quickly. As a modest stretch goal, I'd like to get computer driven players in the game.

Originally, I had this idea that the wizard could cast an Avatar spell and actually show up in the combat as a unit, and turn it in to a top down action brawler, but I realized that just the strategy game context was probably going to take all weekend to get right, so for the first time in my personal Ludum Dare history....

I'm not overscoping my project.

....

As much as I could be.

Hope your project is going well. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I think a lot of my game is going to be data structures before I have anything really visible.

Wish me luck ^^;

I'm proudly throwing in the towel. Hopefully I get there next time!

I'm actually not all that shaken up about it- I was going into this with long odds. I've had successful projects before, but all were in visual coding systems like Construct. Actually, come to think of it, I think Construct's the only engine I've succeeded with. This time, I was taking a shot with Godot, and I'm actually amazed with what I've put together in a weekend!

TL;DR: I tried to make a Vampire Survivors-esque game where monster spawners were powered by signals you could follow, to relays you could destroy. The overall goal was to destroy the stronghold. I lost a good portion of my time to real life responsibilities and an early change in direction, but got about 85% of the way to a very playable result.

Here's what I learned: + Don't overindex on prediction polls, or you'll spend valuable time fascinated over the idea of a Jezzball roguelike upmake for the theme "Split", only to get blindsided so hard you spend a full hour on your bed, staring at a mattress saying the word "signal" over and over again until it loses all meaning. + Sometimes, the reason you're trying to access the method of a null instance is because you screwed up something in your code four classes deep, and you'll spend hours digging out the disconnect.

Sometimes it's because you forgot to assign a PackedScene in the inspector.

• SVG art in Affinity Designer 2 is how you get a cohesive art style with no drawing experience. If you can use Boolean operations on their shapes and know how to drag nodes around, you can get a surprisingly attractive and fun experience, and modular builds for easy animation, in lightning fast time.
• You're gonna want to reach for that third Monster or Red Bull. You've heard all the talk about caffeine having limits, about the crash after, but you were 20 once- you remember staying awake all weekend for a concert or convention on nothing but sweet carbonated rat poison. The third monster doesn't do anything but make you wish you weren't making a game- you'll want to be in it. Drink Water.
• I need to work on getting to bed earlier during jams. It feels good to squeeze a few hours out of that 11 pm - 1 am window, but it took it out of me in the long term. I genuinely think I would have gotten more done if I had slept more ^^;
• I just don't have it in me to do something interesting, code, art, music and all, in a single weekend. I never even got started on the music. I've already got an artist for next jam, and I'm looking in to someone with some musical talent ^^

Here's materially what I achieved: + Some pretty good static art for a monster, a monster spawner, a signal relay, and a stronghold, as well as for the abilties in the game. + A functional signal system using Godot's Area2D- basically objects can be powered if they're touching a signal, and propagate the signal if it's a relay. + Relays regularly spawn monster spawners, which regularly spawn monsters, which track the player down and attempt to murder them. + A fully functioning modular ability system, with different forms and effects leveraging Godot's resource system- combat was fully functional, with knockback and damage effects, and sub-object spawning, etc! It was really neat to work on! Both the player and monsters were autofiring abilities (a la Vampire Survivors), and monsters had the ability to do effects if they collided with the player. + I put together about 6 abilities during testing, and have ideas for a bunch more :D

Here's what I came short on: + I was hoping to at least have one more enemy and linked spawning object. Originally I wanted three signals winding around the map, each with a stronghold that unlocked a central castle. I also dreamed of a boss encounter for each of the strongholds and castle, but even when I was writing that dream down, it was on the "Maybe after the jam" column XD + I wanted to put together a levelling system with a gradual unlocking of abilities you could swap in and out of, with stat adjustments. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to put it together without too much effort later, but man, my brain is mush. + There's a lot I can still do with the characters and abilities. The cartoony style I did the art in makes animating a breeze. I want to do particle effects and different kinds of spells and abilities + Oh yeah, Friday night I thought I was making a Strategy game, and burned five hours overscoping. XD

It's a bummer to not be able to submit for grading with work tomorrow and brain being thoroughly done today, but I'm still going to finish it asap and post it somewhere- it was a fun project!