This month, I decided to focus on one single aspect of the game, in order to evaluate it. During some recent brainstorming sessions about the theme and world of the game, I discovered some inspiring ideas about recycling space junk. The idea is that the player can switch between two modes: Shooting and Crushing.

When shooting, the game plays like most shmups, where you move around fairly quickly and attack enemies by shooting with different weapons. When the Crushing mode is engaged, the player moves a little bit slower, can't shoot anymore and a junk crushing device appears in the front of the ship, enabling the player to crush junk parts that come sailing through space, as well as the junk that gets spawned when enemies are killed and explode into pieces.

These two modes can hopefully create a dynamic experience where the player juggles between the different modes in order to kill enemies and harvest their parts. The junk parts can later be recycled in exchange for upgrades for the player, completing the loop of Destroying enemies, Harvesting their junk, Recycling the junk for rewards.

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Evaluation

I think the experiment went well and the prototype feels good to play in it's current state and I will continue to polish it further. I already have ideas about how to polish the experience with graphics, sound and controller vibrations. I also have many ideas for how to expand the interactions with different kinds of junk, enemies and powerups. I don't have a set plan ahead, but it feels like a natural thing to start off by building a test level where I mix enemies and junk and see how well I can make the balance between Shooting and Crushing. 

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Work Time

All in all, I spent 10-20 hours on making this prototype. This was done in 1-2 hour sessions in the mornings before regular work over the course of a month (and many days this month had to be spent moving to a new house, so I didn't get as much done on the project as I was hoping for). If I had the possibility to spend full-time on this project, I would probably have done the same progress (and probably more) all within a normal work-week.

I really enjoy working on this project and I hope that I will be able to do it full-time in the future. (If any publishers want to get in touch at any point, feel free to contact me.) In the meantime, I'll just continue having these nice morning sessions. Thanks for reading!

/ Robert

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Here's what I did in February 2024:

• 3D model of ship.
• Symbol idea.
• Trello planning.
• Recycling theme idea. (Got the idea in the shower!)
• Recorded recycle crush sound effects at the food store.
• Organized files.
• Pushed backup of all files.
• Wrote a detailed plan for the recycling prototype.
• Started working on the recycling prototype.
• Searched for a good palette. The old idea seems to still be valid.
• Coded medium sized junk.
• Coded large sized junk.
• Added overheating.
• Polished and commented the code.
• Recorded video of the prototype.
• Wrote devlog.