I'm usually not, wait, make that never in a position where I can't think of a good game idea based of a theme. For some reason, "Duel" is just so open-ended that I can't think of anything good enough for myself. I can always just make a mediocre street fighter game, but my mind is stuck in this perfectionist state where I have to make a "perfect" (or really close to perfect) game.

That being said, the only thing I have done, is brainstorm countless ideas for 10 hours, and set up a base for the game in simple Python Code. I have one game idea that I know I will be able to pull off by the end of this weekend, but its sort of a small-scope entry.

My idea in a nutshell was to make a game where two players (or one player and a CPU) duel against eachother by trying to destroy eachothers castles by using different troops, defenses, and traps.

I also have a cold, so I can't do my usuall plan of waking up at 3AM and working for hours straight. Tonight I'm going to try to get some good rest, so I can have a misery-free and productive day tomorrow.

Looks like I'll be doing it again. 2nd Time doing this.

What I'll be using:

• Pygame 1.9 and Python 2.7 for Engine
• Photoshop for Art
• BeepBox for Music
• Possibly Tiled for Level Editing? (If it comes to that)

Good luck to you all!

So the past two days I had everything working great and on my way to having a strong finish. That all went downhill this morning.

Instead of staying up late at night, I like to get up extra early and work because thats when the rest of my Family is asleep and I can have peace and quiet. I set my alarm for 4 AM on my watch last night. That worked, except the only problem is my watch's battery died after I fell asleep. Fortunately I didn't miss to much work time, as I slept in until 5 AM, but it still was a good chunk of time lost.

Everything went smoothly and I got a lot of work done until about two hours ago, when I was making the "How to Play" screen.

I decided to create my How to Play screen in Adobe Illustrator as it would be much easier to load the images instead of rendering and positioning all the text manually within Pygame, or so I thought. When I tried to use Adobe Media Encoder to turn the .ai files into .pngs, they came out completely wacky and I had little time to fix it, so I decided to use an online conversion site instead. Unfortuanetly, all the sites I went to either had a file limit or a size limit unless I created an account, which I didn't really have time to do. So I kept on searching for more sites to do convert the files on, and I got the same file or size limit. Something finally clicked in my brain that said "Making an account on one site would be much more efficient than searching through 10 more that won't work", which I wish would've popped into my brain much earlier, as I then only had 20 minutes left in the competition. When I converted the images, the custom font I used was lost in the conversion and a lot of the letters were for some reason erased, only making it so you could read parts of a word. I decided to put it in anyway, but it took so much time that I wasn't able to get to get the important few things I needed to get done in the end. So, if you play my game and it seems a little bit broken, that's why.

Sorry for such a long post, I'm just trying to explain why my game might end up weird when you play it. Good job to all that finished in the Ranked jam, and I hope you do well. I can't wait to rate all your fun games, I'm positive they'll all be great. See you all later, I'm going to take a nap.

Today was a tiring day, but at least it was a fun one.

I am 98% done with all the game mechanics, I just have to fix one thing and I'm all finished. I added a screen where you can cast spells by clicking any of the culinary utilities (I really don't know what else to call it that sounds that cool.). I added a feature where you can view orders by Right-Clicking on Customers, and take their orders by left clicking on them. When you finish casting spells on the food, just left click on them again to serve the food. They will then give you a score out of 10 on how well you did, and even leave a short comment on how you did and what you could do better (If you didn't get a perfect score, of course).

I tried experimenting with drawing all the Sprites on my Drawing Tablet this time, but it doesn't look all that great because of how low resolution the game actually is, so I might go back and change it again later, maybe using Illustrator or a vector editor instead.

Then comes the fun part of today, recording Sound Effects and taking Photos. My family and I went to a local diner today and we recorded some really cool sounds for background noise, and took a lot of cool photos that worked as really cool Menu Screen Backgrounds. But, most importantly, I ate a pretty good Cheeseburger, so it was an overall good experience.

And finally, I worked on the Core Objectives and Gameplay. I started out with adding a simple goal, which was to make X dollars before the day ended. To do this, you have to fine tune and perfect your Food recipes to get more tips. Later on I'm going to add a Shop where you can use the Money you've made to buy perks and more new, valuable food recipes to serve at your Restaurant / Diner to increase Revenue and expand the game even further.

I'm still not going to add Screenshots yet, as I don't think it's really the best it can be, so I'm going to wait to later tomorrow. That being said, Hasta mañana, mi amigos.

Unfortunately for me, the Jam started while I was still in School this morning, so I missed about 4 hours of work time. It didn't end up being that big of a problem though, as I still got plenty done today.

The idea I decided to make was a game where you run a Diner, and you have to cast different spells on your food to make them taste better or possibly worse. The customers will then rate and tip you based on how well you made the food, and you can learn how much or how little of each spell you should cast on different foods to get a better score.

Today I the main game screen built, and I've started to work on some of the mechanics of the game. Customers have a chance of walking into your Diner every couple of seconds, and you can click on them to see what they've ordered. You can also click on the some of the cooking equipment and utensils to open up a menu where you will be able to cast different ammounts and types of spells on your Food. I also got a little bit of the Graphics done, but I still have a long way to go.

Good luck to you all, I'm going to bed for now.

I have never competed in an Alakajam! before, so I decided to try it out as I had some time this February. I've competed in some different game jams before, and they went pretty well in my perspective.

Tools and Tech I will use

• Python and Pygame for Programming + Game Engine. I might try to Learn PyTMX and Tiled over Presidents Day Weekend if I need to build separate levels.
• Adobe Photoshop for Art, as well as Adobe Illustrator for Graphic Design if I need it.
• Bfxr for sound effects, though I might use Garage Band if I have time.

I'm really excited to get started next week, so I'll be preparing a lot in the meantime. Good luck to all who are competing!