Background

Some time ago, I was brainstorming new genre combinations that I could prototype at some point in the future. At the time Lethal Company was blowing up, and I was also heavily into the "Extraction shooter" genre, so many of my ideas revolved around combining these aspects with some other genre. The idea that intrigued me the most was combining a tower defense with elements from extraction shooters.

At the time I was working on my other game Industrial Evolution, but after posting a "playable" demo, I wanted to work on something new (especially since Bevy, the engine I used, is lacking a decent UI system).

Before the jam

I had only worked on the game for about a week prior to the jam. Most of the time I spend learning Godot, but it only took a few days to get the hang of using it as well as discovering some of the best practices for designing my games systems.

At this point, I had what I considered a foundation for this tower defense idea. I took inspiration from Bloons and allowed the player to place towers anywhere within certain areas, as long as they fit in the area and do not overlap.

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I had also created some basic menus that the game would need

I had not come up with the name for the game yet either

There were still many bugs, including one that caused the tower sprites to all look the same. I also knew I would have to refactor the upgrade system, since I would not be able to easily display what each upgrade did, and showing upgrade paths to the player would also be very difficult.

Day 1

I spent most of the first day implementing my idea for the new upgrade system and fixing bugs. While the new system is a bit more rigid, and will require more maintenance, it will be much easier to display upgrades to the player.

I also managed to come up with a name for the game! "Private Mining Corporation" is a play on "Private Military Company" or "PMC". I think this fits the story well, which is about working for deep space mining companies as a defense contractor.

Day 2

I did not work as much on the game on the second day, but I did get most of the new enemy system finished. This allows me to create ranged enemies that can target & destroy enemy towers. I had also decided to make enemies no longer despawn when reaching the mining outpost (yes thats what that blue thing is supposed to be 😅) but instead swarm around it and continue attacking. This was mostly because I wanted the ranged enemies to attack towers in that way, and it felt weird for the non-ranged ones to just disappear. Of course, this is one of those ideas that turned out to be much harder to implement than I expected.

Heres some of the attempts:

I also found a new font which matches the pixel art I am using better

Day 3

After taking a bit of time off on the second day, I was finally able to come up with a solution to the enemy swarming that I feel works well enough. It still needs lots of polish, It is very jittery and I would like for them to still overlap each other a certain amount.

I also took a bit of time to practice my pixel art by creating the basic shapes for a level, as well as come up with a small palette to use. Yes I suck, so far the art has come from assets.

I started writing this devlog halfway through day 3,  so I also spent some time writing this up. For the rest of the jam I will be updating the devlog every day or 2.

I spent the rest of day 3 working on some other level art as well as a banner, and implementing the new temporary level art.

Day 4

Starting day 4, I added the first ranged enemy to the game that is able to target player towers

I also decided to change the name, since I feel "company" just sounds better than "corporation"

The plan for the rest of the day is to finish adding the content I want to have for the first released demo (2-4 upgrades for 2 different towers, 2 levels, 3-4 enemies)

Day 5

I was able to finish most of the content I plan to release for the first version. I will still need to give the game its first pass of balance changes, as well as creating the enemy waves for both of the missions.

I will have to cut much of the scope to release something in time for the end of the jam as usual :P

The remaining time I have will be spent polishing the mechanics as well as finishing the missions & balancing content in the game.

Day 6

During day 5 & 6 I added lots of polish, including a fast forward, pause menu, and some other minor UI improvements. I also created some basic art for the mining outpost

I have also been neglecting a vital part of the game up until this point, which is the actual ending of missions. Before now the game would crash once the last programmed enemy phase had ended. I have now added a win condition for each mission, as well as the ability to leave a mission early at the end of each phase.

I am still missing the majority of the phases for both missions, so I will have to spend most of the last day creating those. Luckily I have designed a system for it that makes it fairly easy to create and tweak. I also need to work on overall balance, since most parts of the game have not been touched.

Hopefully I will also have time to add sounds & music, as well as some other important polish like health bars & tower targeting

Finale

With just 3 hours left until the deadline, I am submitting the first build of the game. I still plan to continue polishing (primarily in terms of balance) for the rest of the time but I like to be safe in case I do not have enough time in the end.

So far I have been able to add a small number of phases for both missions (mostly shared, balancing a TD game is hard 😭), but more importantly I have taken most of the remaining time to add lots of polish! I have added health bars as well as some other much needed UI elements, and I also managed to squeeze in some music!

There is still lots of work that I feel needs to be done for me to be happy with the game,  and there are many features that are very necessary that I have not implemented yet. However, I will admit that it is in a good state to begin playtesting, and I am very pleased with the amount of progress I have been able to make in such a short time period.

I plan to release a major update soon that will address the following and hopefully more:

- Adding a tutorial

- Sound effects

- Tower Targeting (Close, Last, etc.)

- Much more content & balance changes

- Comeback mechanic

- Mining Outpost guns (to avoid dying to a few bugs that you cant reach)

- More interesting way to make money