I thought I'd do quick a post showing my starting point for this year's challenge. The following screenshots show what I'd done BEFORE the challenge started.
Isn't this cheating? I don't think so because I consider it to be working on the "engine", not the "game". Also, the official rules say it's fine, especially if I state what pre-existing code I started with, which I'm doing now.
Basically, I'd rather spend the 7 days working on gameplay instead of implementing path finding algorithms and so on.
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| basic layout and mouse input done |
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| oryx graphics |
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| basic path finding added |
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| monsters, basic AI, target |
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| HP, bars |
So there you go. The monsters are low on health because they've been attacking each other and the game crashes if your health drops to 0. I have a long way to go but I think it's going to be a fun week.
I'm using oryx's tileset and targeting a HTML5/webGL release that should be playable in any modern web browser.
I've also been playing around with shaders recently and the engine already supports basic "glow" effects. If you're still reading, you can check out the "test app" running on Google App Engine at test.magmafortress.com and see the amazing glow in action by pressing "f" twice.
Edit: one more thing I forgot to mention that isn't shown in the screenshots is that my engine also has a simple particle effect system, which causes pixels to fly out when you hit a monster. Just thought I'd mention it in the interest of full disclosure as there's no way I'd have time to spend coding such a thing during the challenge.
