Day 0- yeah, I create my devlog, BEFORE any dev work, so what?

So, the jam theme has been announced, the dev team skipped work a bit early (that's ok, I worked longer on Tuesday). Time for the first devlog, while Unity sets up a new project.

1. The theme

Of  the five themes that got the most votes this wasn't my favorite (that would have been Two Worlds), but wasn't the worst one either (all were ok, but I didn't have anything really good for "companion"). "Strange powerups" have a lot of potential, and fit almost every kind of gameplay, so it's a kind of theme that really lets you get creative.

2. The inspiration, but also the limitation

Shortly before this jam, Bethesda (the publisher of  Skyrim, Dishonored, Evil Within, but you knew that) did a thing that really messed with my head. For everyone who owned Doom or Doom 2 on any platform, got Doom + Doom2 rerelease added to their library! For free! This caused me to replay Doom once more, and put the thought that sounded like "I need to make a fast paced shooter for the next jam". So yeah, that's what I'll do! Fast movement, sprite graphics, and a bit of a twist, provided by the powerups. Additionally, this game is going to be a dual-jam-game, because I love complicating things for myself and my team.

3. The team

So after unity sets up the project (almost done), and I get it to download some assets I need (first person starter kit from unity, you know it, if you read the last point!), I'm off to meet my team. That is a fancy way to say "have beers with my brother, while discussing game design". My brother collaborated with me on multiple projects. You can tell which ones, because those are the ones that have nice, stylish graphics, and not whatever low poly stuff I got my hands on.

4. The ideas

It's a weeklong jam, so there's time to do plenty. Unless something happens, like serious bugs in your perfect game, or, you know, life! The important thing is to plan things, and divide them into what you must have (in my case: moving and shooting in first person, couple of enemy types, STRAGE POWERUPS, one level), what would be cool to have (more enemies, guns, levels, and POWERUPS), and what would just be fancy, but also cool, but also easy to cut, if the time constraints hit you hard

4. The time

Ten days seem like a lot, but it's nice to set checkpoints for milestones. In my case, it looks like this:

By the end of today- Have a project that compiles, structured the way I like, with assets that I want imported. I'll talk some ideas with "the team", so that tomorrow we can go and do this thing!

By the end of the weekend- all basic mechanics need to be implemented by that point. Some other stuff too, like some of the POWERUPS, and possibly basic enemy AI.

By next Friday- all levels that I have then, are all that I'm gonna have. Same goes for enemies, guns, mechanics, powerups.

Before next weekend- all the stuff I don't like to think about, but needs to be done. Menus, instructions. Should be pretty straightforward in this game. Start polishing things, that I want to really work in this game.

Saturday- my grandmas 92nd birthday! 

Sunday- final polish, last bugfixes, get some gameplay footage, to make gifs for itch.io page :)

Monday- nothing! Jam ends at 11 CET, so I'll be at work then!

5. Unity is done with setting up the project, so off I go!