TODO list and scope for LD

Scope.  That's really what LD comes down to.  The first hour I spent thinking of ideas.  This was the 4th idea to hit the whiteboard, yes I use a white board because they are amazing.  It's a real one to, none of that digital stuff for me :P Seriously though, the reason I went through 3 ideas isn't because the ideas were bad.  I love the ideas and I plan on making them in the future.  One of them was cut within 5 minutes because after I flushed it out to a full game... I started cutting it down to the base core game loop.  I could not make a core game loop in two days for that game.  There was just too much to it.

the same for the other 2.  They were good ideas and I feel that given the time, they could be good games.  However, this one stuck.

What a full flushed out game for this would look like. 
Well... let's start with my to do list that I didn't get to.

Procedural level generation - I implemented some of this.  The game starts and the houses are randomly placed in preselected lots.  So there's a batch of spaces that are "ok" and the computer puts the houses there.  It keeps going until all the houses for the villages are placed.  I wanted the initial road to be random too.  It isn't. 

I also wanted the town to grow and create multiple paths and every so often create new levels.

I wanted there to be a resource requirement for man power.  You have a given number of men to operate the towers and then a pool of able bodied men to do it.  That way you couldn't build things or better couldn't man things if you didn't have the manpower.

Every 5 levels, the children grow up to join the work pool and new random amount of babies take their place.

This would give a greater incentive to keeping the kids alive.

Directional graphics for enemies. I had this partially done but I didn't implement this because I didn't want to half ass it.

At least 5 different types of enemies: A flier that ignored aoe, a bulky shield unit that gave a shiled to everyone around them and at higher difficulty the shield would pool within a radius, a cloaked enemy that only emerged with baby., a healer

damage bars over the enemy to show how much hp they have visually

enemies that would be tiered into possibly spawning based on world level.  3 categories of each enemy type; common, rare, legendary with rarity stats as well as rewards outside of gold.

I wanted to make a gem system where the enemies dropped gem shards, which later youcould form gems to give the towers unique ability modifiers.

up-gradable towers

3 additional types of towers. a slowing tower, a tower that does aoe

weather effects

babies no longer teleport to the houses but instead free men in the village come and pick them up and take them back to the house (making them vulnerable)  if no men in the village, then a man from a tower would take up the task

a camera to view only part of the map to give better control

a minimap in the corner

ability to prioritize targets after communication and command hubs have been built

oh yeah, supportive buildings unlocked through progression, originally thought a tech tree but figure something else might do instead of just a traditional tech tree.

particle effects for weapons and damage

ability to upgrade villagers

increase defense for houses so enemies have to delay picking up the children a little before collecting them and run off.

That sums up the todo list. As you can see almost none of this was going to get done over a weekend.

The secret to jams is scope control and learning to gauge what you can do with your time, ability and tools at hand.