So, our school year ends after the first week of March, but our normal classes actually end in February. The first week of March is taken up by Hal Event Week (HEW), a competition where students show off their projects (video games for gaming students, web pages for web students, etc).

The second, third, and fourth years have been doing group projects for the past few months, but we first years basically have February to create our project alone. Apparently last year the first years did group projects as well, but there were problems so this year it was switched to be individual.

So! I thought up my game design a few days ago:

Name: Untitled (I can’t think up names to save my life)
Type: Adventure/Puzzle
Story: You (a princess) have been captured by an evil sorceress and have to escape.

Gameplay: Each level is a different puzzle, there are three levels:

• Level 1: You start in a room, when you walk to the door you have to pick the lock (a Mastermind-style game).
• Level 2: You have to get outside by choosing doors (and finding keys to unlock the doors).
• Level 3: You’re outside, but not safe yet! Navigate the labyrinth to find the exit.

I’m stuck using the console API, which means that I can only use ASCII art (no graphics) but the good thing about Japanese is that not only can I use kanji (I’m going to use the Japanese word for princess — 姫 — as the player avatar), but I can also use squares (□), circles (◎), etc. which makes my life a bit easier.

I think I should be able to get this done in a month, especially since I’ve already coded a Mastermind program and I’m currently working on a labyrinth game for my programming class. But, then again, I have a tendency to think bigger than I have time to code, so we’ll see.

I don’t think I’ll win the competition or anything, but if I can make an interesting game I’ll be happy. Anyway, wish me luck!