My game for GPCv17, Quantum On The High Seas, is now finished. It’s pretty much an exact implementation of my original sketch from before. I never did manage to get the Entanglement mechanic to actually add anything to the gameplay, but I think it still kinda works.

Islands produce particles, of different polarities – Fire, Wood, Banana, Rum, Plants, Anti-wood, Anti-banana, and Anti-rum. Particles represent problems an island has – Anti-rum particles represent a lack of rum, while Rum particles represent too much rum.

Move ships or particles onto islands or polarisers by dragging them around.

Opposite particles annihilate one another, earning you points and increasing your time limit.

Polarisers can be used to change the polarity of particles. A polariser can “twist” particles around the polarity wheel. For example, dragging a Rum particle onto a Banana/Anti-Banana polariser will convert it to a Banana or an anti-Banana, because Banana is next to Rum.

Entangled particles haven’t decided their polarity yet, but one is always the opposite of the other.

Downloads:
Windows
Source – Love2D archive. To run this on Linux, install Love2D, then run “love QmOTHS.love”.

This month’s Game Prototype Challenge has been announced, the themes are Entanglement and Islands. So, crazy person that I am, I’ve decided to make a game about desert island resource management and quantum polarisation mechanics.

You have a group of islands, which produce eight different resource “particles”: fire, wood, bananas, rum, plants, anti-wood, anti-bananas and anti-rum. Opposites (such as bananas and anti-bananas) annihilate when brought into contact, getting you extra points and some more time on the clock. Your task is to keep the islands particle-free.

To mix things up a bit, some islands will have Polariser buildings. If you bring rum to a rum/anti-rum building, the rum will stay the same; if you bring wood to a rum/anti-rum building, nothing will happen, because rum/anti-rum and wood/anti-wood are at right-angles to each other on the wheel. But if you bring bananas to a rum/anti-rum building, then because bananas are close to rum, then 75% of the time the bananas will turn into rum. The remaining 25% of the time, they’ll turn into anti-rum. Are you keeping up with all this?

Now, to properly bring in the Entanglement theme, you’ll sometimes see boats bringing pairs of entangled white particles. These particles are in a quantum state where they’ve not decided what they are yet – if you bring one these to your rum/anti-rum building, one will become rum. The other one, regardless of where it is, will instantly become anti-rum.

I’m hoping all this will make more sense when you’re actually playing. Now the only thing I’m wondering is, what should I use to make this game? I was meaning to have a look at Cocos2d-X or haXe-nme to make this month’s game, but I’m not sure I’ll have enough time between now and the end of the week to make this pretty-complex game *and* learn a new framework. Should I just stick with what I know and use Love2D? My mental picture of this game has a touchscreen, but I’m not sure how well it would actually work without a tablet-sized one, and I don’t have a tablet… Hmm.