So between Day01 and Day03, I spent some time making decisions.   Actually, I spent more time making lists and then iterating those down into decisions I can work with.  The end result is going to be a complete game product (ideally) so some things have to be set in stone fairly early, even if the artist in my soul gets all pouty.

I am not a programmer.  I can understand a basic level of code.  I have no fear of ripping apart an already existing script to figure out what makes it tick.  I can cut and paste snippets together, call functions, spawn objects, etc.  But I am not someone who can take a blank page and turn it into a functioning program (and no, “Hello World” does not count as a program in my book.)  So I need to work with an engine, something that allows me to work with a node-based scripting system.  The code that comes out of graphical scripting is klunky, I know, but if I don’t I’ll end up with the vast majority of this month being devoted to hunting semicolons and fancy parentheses.

This makes my first decision fairly simple.  What game engine do I work with?  I am fairly expert in Unity, and getting expert with GameSalad Creator.  With a limit of 30 days, including polish, I want to go with a puzzle game of some stripe.  This will give me the added advantage of being able to re-use the game logic as a mini-game inside another project at a later date.

The last thing I want to take into consideration is analytics.  I *know* this is about game design per se, but I really want to dig into analytics a bit more.  I know (kinda) how to get Flurry’s analytics plugins to work with Unity, but combining them with GameSalad means I’ll have to crack the hood, again, something that can become a black-hole of time and energy that, with my limited timeframe, is a risk I can’t take on this project.

So.  Complete product, menu to credits. Puzzle game.  Unity3d with a side of uScript.  Next up, game mechanics!