October Challenge: Space Walk

posted by kiwibonga on 11/03/2012 04:47 pm (EST)

Howdy, long time no post!

So I went on a little hiatus from my main project, kiwibonga engine, to focus on making a little game for the October Challenge. More after the jump~~~

To anyone who's not familiar with it, the October Challenge is an informal event with simple rules: Make a game, take it to market, earn $1. There's no prize -- just the satisfaction of releasing something and making money from it.

But of course, the goal is more than just earning money, it's about putting yourself out there and being "ready for success" -- what if you put out something that gets people interested? Do you have web services in place to start accepting payments? Do you have a solid release pipeline that allows you to quickly put together a packaged game that other people can download, install and play on their computer?

In short, the October Challenge is about transformation -- It doesn't really matter if your release goes largely unnoticed or the only people who end up buying your game is your parents, it's about converting from "just dabbling in programming" to actually producing software.

And that's exactly what I'm doing with Space Walk.

Now, obviously, October has passed, but that doesn't mean the challenge has to be over... In fact, the project is healthy as ever!



Space Walk is a little game that draws inspiration from Dope Wars, in which you attempt to make a fortune buying and selling commodities at fluctuating prices given a limited amount of money and time.

Space Walk begins with a brief exchange between the protagonist and the loan shark; your task is to transform $1,000 into $200,000 within 8 days.



Of course, as you can expect, this is only the beginning of our hero's little adventure. The game includes space travel, random encounters with Space Police, buying weapons and spaceships, hiring crew members and even putting them to work in illegal growing and manufacturing operations, all in an effort to appease your demanding creditors.



I'm working with two artists to help spruce up the graphics (right now, everything you see was drawn by yours truly!). Look for prettified graphics in our next issue!

Until next time!