The Action Plan

The deadline? Monday the 10th of December.

The task? A finished Game Document, a sweet blog, and a working prototype.

I've just finished my first, bare bones draft of the GDD, but finishing that shouldn't be too much hassle. However, I'm starting to wish the emphasis had been on it earlier, because as I worked through it I got a great view of the things that needed improvement in my game. Here's the subsequent list of the changes and fixes that I want to implement over the next few days, in time for the deadline;

The Incentive to Play
What I want, is a really good reason for the player to continue playing. Now, to a certain extent, that's already being done by the score system and the recording of the players stats. But I want something a little more addictive. My idea at present is a big tube filled with slime that represents how many humans have been abducted, with the goal being to fill it entirely, which will mean the player has won the game. Also, possibly, an upgrade system? It may well be too late in the game for that, but we shall see.

More Gameplay Mechanics
Another thing? A thing to do? My present thoughts, an enemy that fires a homing rocket that needs to be shot down by the player. I have an idea for the behavior in my head, the thing that might take up my time is building the art assets, so that's something to think about.

Wrap Around
It seems very important that the player not be able to shepard all of the humans into one corner and harvest them, hence I'm working on a 'wrap-around screen' behavior which should eliminate that possibility.

Throw Humans Towards Ship
It seems to me that, despite getting used to it over time, it can be quite jarring to have to try and catch the humans when they're being abducted, so I'm working on a fix for this that throws the human directly at the players position rather than into the air.

Bug Fixes
Failing increments the level - At present, due to the way the level progression system works, upon failing a level the 'level' attribute is still incremented, meaning the game becomes progressively harder no matter wether the player is successfully completing levels or not. This is an easy fix.
Check Evasion Behavior - There seem to be some bugs with the evasion behavior that cause the humans to sit still when they spawn with the ship within their detect radius. This is difficult to test but I will attempt to work out the problem.
Always Simulate Aggro Humans - At present the humans who are supposed to head towards the player and fire at them do not 'simulate' when off screen, and hence only begin to head towards the player when they come on screen. This is a very simple fix.

So that's the action plan, with any luck I'll post an update the sunday before the deadline.
Wish me luck,
Jack