J46k
J46k is a small game that I made in a few weekends (game jam style) with a platform called pico-8.
I wrote some specifics about pico-8 in a separate write up.
Game Overview
Our friend Jon (the main character) is a friendly technology loving arachnophobe. Unfortunately, he's been thrown into a world brimming with his eight legged enemies. If not for his charming lady friends, he would be pretty helpless against the spiders.
Jon goes throughout the world to defeat the spiders while collecting powerups, befriending lady-friends, and collecting A.I. Bits to power his computer (a Tandy TRS-80). Collect enough A.I. Bits to reach the end level.
Focusing On The Critical Path
I had several ideas for this project, but I wanted to focus on the critical path (which is really hard to stay on with a project like this). When I was faced with a hard task (or something that I wasn't clear on how to accomplish at first), I found myself vearing away to work on more fun aspects of the game. Constantly reevaluating "is the task I'm currently working on on the critical path?" helped me to get to some form of project completion. My intentions were not to make the next great game. I wanted to get this thing out the door and move on to my next project.
It's easy to start making a game. It's hard to finish.
In fact, I'd argue that it's not finished. For the few people that I've shared this game with, I called it a working prototype.
Maybe some of those unused ideas will go in a J46k v2.
Contributions Are Welcome
There are plenty of bugs and unpolished features in the game. Feel free to contribute or even fork it to start your own game. https://github.com/dfirebaugh/j46k
Thanks
Thanks to @nipfu for contributing ideas and hanging out for the j46k game jam!