So it’s time to talk a little about the Game in a Week that I’m ostensibly working on.

This particular GiaW is interesting, in that of all the GiaWs I have done, I got the final game idea for this one the earliest in the week (Tuesday morning), but left the first implementation the latest.  This was primarily due to work and other real-life factors distracting me.  Also, I was introduced to several neat TV shows this week, all of which have conspired to pull me away from the computer.  Also also, I’ve been a little distracted by MMORPG Tycoon bugfixes and development.  Now I know how Petri feels, trying to do his monthly games while still getting work done on Crayon Physics Deluxe!

Anyhow, this is also the GiaW where I’ve used the most words from the initial quote, in setting the game theme.  The initial quote (from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, although I’m sure that the same sentence appears in the less deprecatingly-titled Philosopher’s Stone), I’ll remind, was this:

It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot.

I’ve pulled words from this passage to form my game’s theme, and the game’s theme is this:  “It is very hard to move around, because it remembers a lot.”

So.  In this game, the player takes on the role of a young boy.  This boy has a robot pet/friend/nanny, and is going shopping with that robot.  Unfortunately, the robot is being a little difficult today;  owing to a minor design flaw in its object-avoidance programming, the robot absolutely refuses to cross its own path, for fear of colliding with itself in the past.

Also unfortunately, the robot has the money.  And so the boy must get the robot to each of the vending machines in each level by pulling on the robot’s leash or shoving the robot, but with the robot never agreeing to cross its own path.

This game is strongly grid-based, and there is no time limit;  each level is a maneuverability puzzle which players must solve to reach the next level.  And it’ll be trivially easy for anyone to create new levels for the game.  And I’m hoping to set it up so that the computer can automatically generate new levels itself.  Though that might be a bit of a push, by the end of the day tomorrow.  We’ll see!

Anyhow, I don’t have a title for the game yet;  possible options I’ve entertained are “Robot Pal”, “Robot Goes Shopping”, and my current favourite, “Robot Finds Ice-Cream”.  So for right now, I’m just calling it “Robot”.