Survive 2d

I started using the below top down palm tree as programmer art thinking I would come up with my own palm trees when time was right... but more I look at it more I liked and I the graphic style I was working on was unconsciously influenced by this one.

Seeing this I contacted the owner of this graphic - Michelle (from http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/) and not only did she confirm that I could use this graphics freely but also gave me some warm words of encouragement which I desperately needed.

Her blog - http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/

and the palm tree here-  http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/2012/05/power-outage-techy-tuesday-winner-free.html

I recently discovered that there was already a game green-lighted on steam called Survive - not sure how I missed that before as I recall checking... I will need to see if I keep "Survive 2d" as a title or look for another one... 

Suggestions welcome.

Me, who just bought this URL... great investment... 

By the way - why Survive...

This is a pretty logical title as the main goal of the game is to survive.

and why 2d

Here also pretty logical as the game is in top down 2d. I initially added this to my working files as I roughly played with a 3d version before deciding that due to my technical limitations and to my preferences I would go for a 2d version.

p.s. Survive has a kick-starter going right now -

The water being a no go area of the game for the moment - I came up with the pretty obvious idea (pulling on our collective traumatic “Jaws” [“Dans de la mer” - for me] memories) to add some sharks roaming around in the sea to somewhat explain this no go zone….

First step - drawing a shark…. sadly I’m far from being a good drawer or graphic designer but I gave it a shot with pen and paper …

and then digitised and textured it - had to make it darker than planned so that it remains visible under water.

I then added the sharks to the game scene and created a few animation routes, as well as a quick script in which shark will pick one route and follow it. Once it reaches the end of his route, it picks another one and starts again. Still need to do some tweeking of speed and turn angles but I find it kind of works.

Survive 2d aims to be an indie computer game about a castaway lost on a island and trying to survive and be rescued. Since I was young I often tried to imagine how I would fare on an island in order to survive and with Survive 2d I hope to create an environment which players can use to live out their castaways life.

I guess the best way to summarise what I would like to achieve with Survive is to post an extract of the initial game concept document I sent to a couple of friends for a concept check and some first feed-back.

"Concept notes :

The idea of Survive 2d is quite straight forward : the player ends up stranded on an island after a plane crash or marine related incident and must to do what is needed to :

survive

get rescued

If the player only looks to survive the game is an open ended sand-box.

If the player wants to be rescued he will need to build and maintain a certain number of buildings, items and other which will increase is rescue chance percentage. This rescue change percentage will be checked on a daily basis and if successful the player will be rescued and the game won.

Player will loose if he dies (health reduce to zero) or goes mad (mental health reduce to zero).

Health is impacted by :

lack of water (once the thirst bar reaches 0)

lack of energy (once the energy bar reaches 0)

accident – none implemented yet

poison (wrong food, bad water, etc...) – none implemented yet

interaction with hostile animals/other – none implemented yet

Thirst is reduced by :

passing time

exertion and exposure

Energy is reduced by :

passing time

time since last meal was consumed

time since last sleep

Mental health is reduced by :

accumulated number of days on island (once a day event)

scary events (e.g. First storm, animal encounter, etc...)

In order to survive, the player can :

gather resources

build buildings

craft items

carry out actions – some of which require crafted items.

An essential part of the concept is the « day » / « night » cycle. The general concept is that « day » should be relatively safe and used for development whereas « night » should be unsafe, scary and focus on defense/survival. The second part is still grandly missing right now as near to no hostile animal or creature have yet been implemented.... (just one old and ugly tiger who should sleep under trees in the day and roam at night) so please try and imagine this and take in account when thinking about the game concept and your testing feedback."

For years I have been a video game aficionados and have played with the idea of developing my own game at a few occasions. Today's easy accessibility to user friendly technologies (for me the eye opener was Unity) made me realise that this idea of independently developing a video game even if still a very long shot was perhaps somewhat reachable.

So 6 months or so ago I decided to not for once abide to the "if you don't try, you won't fail" approach and embark on an adventure to try and make this a reality... for the moment it is still a hobby and the road ahead is still very long and I don't know if I will ever reach the end of it. But I'm trying... feels good...