In a sentence, this game is (going to be) an interstellar trade simulator. The player will manage ships, create trading routes, and more to earn money and grow even bigger. I have a lot of ideas for cool features, but I'm trying not to get ahead and myself (and, realistically, I kind of doubt that I'll ever get far enough to start implementing more than the relative basics, but fingers crossed!).

All of my progress so far can be found here.

Goal

Spend a minimum of two hours over at least four days every week programming.

Achievements

Carry-Over Achievements

½KLOC: Your game reaches 500 lines of code. You're off to a great start!
1KLOC: Your game reaches 1000 lines of source code. Making progress! Excellent!
2KLOC: Your game reaches 2000 lines of source code. Keep it up!
Hang it on the Fridge: You create at least one piece of art (sound, texture, model, sprite, etc.) for your project.
Artistic: You create four pieces of art for your game.
Widget Factory: Add a UI of some sort to your game, with buttons, sliders, check boxes, etc.
Heads Up: Add a Head-up Display or other UI overlay to your game.
It's Just Temporary: You put in artwork in your game that you claim is temporary, until you or your friend can provide you with better art.

I've also already spent seventy-eight hours and twenty-four minutes working on this game, but for the most part I'll start counting from zero again. I may make note of when my overall time reaches big milestones like one-hundred hours, though.

New Achievements

With the eclipse happening and with how busy I've been at work, I hate to say it but I think I'm going to push back the competition time frame for myself by a full week. I just don't think I'll be getting a whole lot done this weekend, since my brain is elsewhere….

If anybody else is going to the eclipse (which you all should) may you have clear skies and clearer roads!

I'll post more updates after the weekend as the start of my time frame begins.

Intruduction

As some of you know, I've started a personal Game that I intend to sell at one point, for those of you that don't know about it I will give you a basic summary for Future Game.

My dream for this game is pretty much that each person will have a army of User-programmed-computer-controlled-units, fighting in real time, the player would then help these troops in battle using a single manually controlled unit, along with moving fireteams, squads and platoons around a global map (like risk) in a simultaneous turn based system.

My Goal for this competition is the following.

Future Game Pre-Alpha 0.1:

Artificial Intelligence!!

Pre-Alpha 0.1 will be the first public release where it contains the "gist" of combat in Future Game.

• One or multiple A.I. that can have its programming altered by spending points on it between rounds.
• The A.I. will have basic necessity's like pathfinding, targeting and health/destruction.
• At least 3 different types of stats that can be increased/decreased as the game progresses, but no spoilers yet as to what they do.

While it seems simple enough, this is actually a big goal for this competition, Good news is that i've been getting better at integrating game dev into my normal work life which is the ultimate goal.

Bug Fixes!

Of course, one of the most important things is to get rid of bugs, I will create a bug sheet at the bottom so feel free to send me a message (in the discord preferably) if you notice anything.

Bugs - 0.0.17

Toddler

AI has problems with walking, walking slowly when moving on some angles, and facing east/west after reaching its destination

Current Dev Version: Pre-Alpha 0.0.17

Current Public Version: Pre-Alpha 0.0.16

BIG HUGE DOWNLOADS BUTTON

Total Achievements

These achievements are accumulating throughout competitions.

These achievements are self-claimed. When you feel like you've met the criteria for the achievement, then claim it as your own accomplishment! (Most people list their achievements in their game's development thread, but it's not required.)

This list is not exhaustive. If you feel like you've done something that deserves recognition (or a self-deprecating dubious award about new creative ways you wasted time) add a new post with the achievement so everybody else can claim it too!

Accomplishments

Leveled Up: You learned something that you didn't know that you can reuse in other games or other programs.

Prototype: You have something that could loosely be called a working game.

Victory: Beat your game for the first time!

The Great Unveiling: Provide a download for your game.

Additions: Add at least one game feature that you weren't planning on or didn't think you had time for.

Seeing the Matrix: Share your source code with the people in the competition via GitHub, BitBucket, or a simple download.

Goals

Taking Aim: Set a goal for yourself for one week (or the full length of the competition).

Claim Adjuster: Change a goal during the competition after seeing it not go so well.

Stay On Target: Take the time to re-evaluate your goals during the competition, and determine that they're working.

Failures

Law of Live Demos: You show your WIP to somebody. Something goes horribly wrong.

Happy Accident: You accidentally create a bug that leads to humorous results. Post the video or screenshot in the Happy Accident thread.

Time Machine: Worked for over an hour on code that you rip out.

"Research": You spend a few hours playing a game when you should have been making one.

Monday: The entire weekend went by and you didn't get any programming done.

Wait, We Were Supposed to Make a Game?: Go for a full week without spending any time on the game.

Insufficient Vespene Gas: Eliminate at least one game feature due to time pressure or lack of programming knowledge.

Game Features

Game Over: You add the ability for players to lose the game. (Also, you just lost the game.)

Gratuitous Blood: Your explosions and deaths result in far more destruction than is necessary or even believable.

A Box Without Hinges: Create an Easter Egg and hide it somewhere in your game.

Konamified: Make the Konami Code do something interesting in your game.

Special Thanks: Create a credits screen which list all those who have contributed to your project.

Plot Whole: Create a story (however simple) and implement it into your game.

I'm Sorry, Dave. I'm Afraid I Can't Do That. Add an AI enemy, opponent, or component to your game. It doesn't have to be any good.

Two Can Play This Game! You make your game multiplayer (same computer/device, LAN, or Internet all count).

Heads Up: Add a Head-up Display or other UI overlay to your game.

Widget Factory: Add a UI of some sort to your game, with buttons, sliders, check boxes, etc.

Programming

Head Banger: Use recursion in some form in one of your games.

Jurassic Programming - While making your game run into a situation where you must add a ton of code lines to get something to work. (IE: adding points into a collision detection array) - "I wrote a million lines of code to run this park!"

Less is More: Lines of code ain't everything. Sometimes, the best solution is to refactor to eliminate redundant lines of code, leaving you with less but better designed code. Do this and unlock this achievement.

Art and Sound

It's Just Temporary: You put in artwork in your game that you claim is temporary, until you or your friend can provide you with better art.

8 is Enough: Use old school 8 bit graphics or sound/music in your work. Could also be a midi file on the music side.

Hang it on the Fridge: You create at least one piece of art (sound, texture, model, sprite, etc.) for your project.

Artistic: You create four pieces of art for your game.

Vincent van Gogh: You create 10 pieces of art for your game.

I'm a Lover, Not an Artist!: You get all, or most of your work, from online sources and do very little of your own artwork.

Silence is Not Golden: Add sound effects or background music to your game. 8 is Enough optional.

Progress

1 Hour: You spend at least 1 hour working on your game during the competition.

10 Hours: You spend at least 10 hours working on your game during the competition.

25 Hours: You spend at least 25 hours working on your game during the competition.

50 Hours: You spend at least 50 hours working on your game during the competition.

100 Hours: You spend at least 100 hours working on your game during the competition.

½KLOC: Your game reaches 500 lines of code. You're off to a great start!

1KLOC: Your game reaches 1000 lines of source code. Making progress! Excellent!

2KLOC: Your game reaches 2000 lines of source code. Keep it up!

3KLOC: Your game reaches 3000 lines of source code. Your game definitely has some weight behind it!

5KLOC: Your game reaches 5000 lines of source code. Well done!

10KLOC: Your game reaches 10000 lines of code. That is a lot of zeroes! And it's 16 in binary! (That makes it sound… rather unimpressive!)

15KLOC: Your game reaches 15000 lines of source code. Are you programming in your sleep or something?

20KLOC: Your game reaches 20000 lines of source code. Are you just copying and pasting lines of code to unlock achievements?

25KLOC: Your game reaches 25000 lines of source code. OK, you must be cheating. How are you writing this much code?

Miscellaneous

Applying Research: Spend at least an hour programming when you should be doing something else.

Moral Support: Leave a comment on somebody else's game thread with (constructive) feedback.

3 AM Code Fest: You spend several hours programming your game between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. Beer and pizza optional.

Back of the Line: Don't get started until the competition is well underway.

The Thinker: Spend a hour thinking through a complicated piece of code and get it right first try.

The Tinker: Fiddle with a complicated piece of code and get it to work only after a lot of failed tweaks.

Way to Brag: Claim at least 15 achievements.

The Buddy System: Spend all or part of the challenge building a game in a team.

Lonely: Program on a Friday or Saturday evening.

Change Of Plans: You stop making the game you originally entered and instead enter a new one. Whether you got bored, stuck, or whatever, the whole point is to have fun and make something you like!

Thinking Ahead: Spend time before the start of the competition planning your game.

Open Invitation

This list is not intended to be comprehensive (despite being "official"). If you come up with something else that you think is deserving of recognition or note, please help us add to this list by posting below.

Signing up isn't mandatory (you can do the full competition without ever signing up) but signing up is a great way to make a public commitment to the world that you're going to work on a game for 31 days and try to produce something interesting.

Please feel free to sign up below here to get the ball rolling!

These rules are tentative. If you want to suggest a change to the rules, post a comment below and we can talk about it as a community.

Picking Goals

Because the focus of the competitions are to get things done on a game, the competition doesn't prescribe how much or what parts of a game you should make. Instead, you must choose a specific goal for yourself.

There is a preference for process goals over target goals. The following are target goals:

• I'm going to complete a game in the 31 days of the competition.
• I'm going to add networking to this game I've been working on.
• I'm going to build enough of a game that I can start play testing it with others.

These are good goals, and the competition doesn't discourage using these types of goals, but…

These are process goals:

• My problem is that I keep doing other things instead of working on my game. My goal is to dedicate at least 6 hours every week to working on my game so that it can actually progress.
• My problem is that when I sit down to work on my game, I get distracted by other things. My goal is to eliminate my distractions when I program by turning on my Strict Workflow Chrome extension to block Facebook, YouTube, etc., close Discord, and put my phone in the other room while I'm working on my game.
• My problem is that I put my life on hold when I start working on a game and burn myself out by doing nothing but game dev. So my goal is to get at least 8 hours of sleep and spend 30 minutes taking care of other life responsibilities before moving to game dev.

Target goals are not bad. We eventually want to get that first game out there. But software development is extremely difficult to predict. Something comes up and suddenly, your target goal is out the window and you lose motivation for continuing because you can't hit your target anymore.

This is what makes process goals better. Process goals are way less prone to surprises happening. The outcome of a process goal is nearly always the result of your own efforts and decisions, not some external surprise.

A key part of the competition is picking one or more goals to aim for during the competition. Process goals are preferred, but target goals are also acceptable.

Another key part is continually re-evaluating your goals. You are not only allowed to change your goals during the competition, you're strongly encouraged to re-evaluate them and decide if they need to be adjusted. (This is commonly done as a part of our weekly sprint cycle.)

Rules

1. You must choose goals for yourself. Since the competition doesn't prescribe exactly what you must complete on a particular game, the burden is on you, the participant, to decide what you need to accomplish during the competition. Pick one or more goal for the competition and list it in your forum thread or elsewhere that people can track your progress. Process goals are preferred to target goals, but both or either are allowed.

2. Show your work. To count as a "win", you must show your progress to the other participants. The most common way to do this is by creating a forum thread for your game in the competition's section of the forum. In your thread, you can post status updates, screenshots, and even downloads for the game. (Even source code, if you want to make the game open source.) Some people post daily updates or weekly updates, but at a minimum, final results are required to meet this requirement.

At least weekly updates are strongly encouraged, as the community tends to have a weekly sprint/cycle/cadence. A week is usually enough time to show some amount of progress, and keeps you moving forward one week at a time. For most people, this ends up being Sunday evening or Monday sometime.

3. Making sellable games is strongly encouraged. Not that you have to actually attempt to sell it, and not that if you tried to, somebody would pay money for it, but you should be carefully watching licensing agreements an avoid copyrighted material (or get permission from the copyright holder). For anything that requires attribution, the copyright holder should be listed in the credits.

Beginners can have an exception to this rule. If you've never made a very large project before, it is probably better to start by cloning a really simple game first (Tic Tac Toe, Pong, Breakout, etc.) to start to figure out how to build functioning games before tackling the magnum opus floating around in your head.

4. No restrictions on team size. While most people tend to work alone, working in a team is allowed and encouraged. If you don't have a team, post a message in the competition's section in the forum and ask for people to join you or express your interest in being a part of a team.

5. No restrictions on tools, engines, frameworks, languages, etc. The competition doesn't prescribe any particular language or engine. Use whatever you think is best for you and your game.

These rules are quite different from earlier competitions, so if you have questions, comments, or suggestions to improve them, comment below.

Based on the established pattern from earlier in the year, the Summer Competition should already be underway…

But it's clearly not.

I'm currently debating on just jumping on in and starting this competition on Friday, which keeps us as close to the original time table as possible, or starting a week from Friday, to give us 10 days to get ready for it.

Does anybody have any thoughts or preferences?

We don't have a ton of time to debate the pros and cons, so if it makes a difference to you or you have an opinion, jump in and share it soon. Based on the feedback we get, we'll make our decision by about tomorrow (Tuesday) night.