Welcome everyone to the start of our devlog for our submission for the EGaDS One-Button Game Jam!

https://itch.io/jam/egads-one-button-game-jam

Our team, Wednesday's Children, is composed of:

• Yujie Tao: 3D Artist - https://solspica.itch.io/
• Karah Phang: Audio - https://itch.io/profile/ksquarethings
• Nevin Portillo: Programmer - https://nevinportillo.itch.io/

This first post includes what our game is going to be about! Following EGaDS' announcement of the jam's theme: elemental, and much deliberation our team decided to go for a hold-them-off, fast-paced, endless survival game! As of writing this we don't have a name for our game just yet, but follow along our devlog to see our progress throughout the jam!

Our game is set in an indoor room where the main character (one fluent in using the 4 Aristotelian elements: water, fire, earth, and air) is suddenly invaded by elemental monsters coming into the room! Being the only entrance in the room, the player is cornered, until they get the fight-or-flight idea of using the elements collected in a shelf/container near them to use against the elementals! The player must hold off the natural monstrosities for as long as possible, making sure to use the correct elements against the respective elementals. How long can you survive???

Game Flow

Our gameflow consists of 3 steps:

1. Searching for Elements
   1. The player's character will automatically start searching for elements if their hand is empty. The searching consists of a 1 sec -> 1 sec timing. They'll search for 1 sec, then find an element which will be available for 1 sec, before going back to search for 1 sec, and so on. This will cycle through the four elements for each discovery. The player will stop searching if their hands are full
2. Collecting Elements
   1. When the player discovers an element that they need, they must press the 'spacebar' once while it's revealed, which they will collect in their hand.
   2. For now we'll focus on just having the 4 elements in our game. A stretch goal would be being able to collect up to 2 elements, then holding down 'spacebar' for a short period of time to combine them, then create a composite element (such as combining water + fire to create steam) and use them against these composite elementals.
3. Using the Element
   1. Once the player has an element in their hand, they must double click 'spacebar' in order to use it against the front monster. If it's the correct element for the respective monster, the monster will unalive, then we move on to the next one after. For a guide of which elements to use against which elemental:
      1. Water douses Fire > Fire burns Earth > Earth blocks Air > Air blows Water
   2. If the player uses the incorrect element against a monster, their attack does nothing, and must go through the other 2 steps first until they get the correct element.

Ideally the player would have a couple of lives or hits that they can withstand should a monster reach them. Along with hopefully reaching our stretch goal of combining elements, our game would include progression where composite elementals appear often and spawn/move faster. We'll also have a timer to show how long the player has been going at it for, while making sure to keep the gameplay fast-paced in an arcade-style timespan.

Thank you for reading! Make sure to visit the game jam's page https://itch.io/jam/egads-one-button-game-jam on June 4th (Sunday) 2023 at 7:00pm for when the jam ends and look at the other team's amazing creations!