One thing I've got a lot of value from is breaking of weekend-scoped pieces of development, so that you can show off your progress to your coworkers on Monday morning. Some games have more weekend-sized pieces than others, but I think the ones that can be broken up that way are easier to maintain progress on as you move along.
With "One Game a Month" there aren't a lot of weekends per game, so that idea has to be modified some - either smaller chunks, or smaller games.
I told some coworkers about Zone of Battle: Tank Patrol yesterday, and almost all of them had problems loading it. Weird. Now, I had only tested on Linux/Chrome, which isn't representative of all OS/browser combinations out there, but even some Linux/Chrome coworkers couldn't load it. They were able to give me some valuable debug output.
So, recently done:
- Tank movement - I got this in yesterday morning. There's arrow key steering for simple control, or tank steering, if that's your thing.
- Some obvious browser bugs fixed - no guarantees about your browser, but I'm guessing more people will be able to play it now.
- Projectiles launching from the muzzle - this was a small change, but it makes a big difference in the feel of the projectiles.
- Static objects in the world - I made a cone and two sizes of cubes. They don't block tanks or projectiles, they're just visual, but they make the tanks feel like they're in a space, rather than just floating around onscreen.
And the top of the TODO list:
- collisions - between tanks and objects, between tanks and tanks
- enemy tanks shooting at you - this will be the last important piece of gameplay. It will probably change the feel of the game substantially, requiring tuning speeds and scales, but that's a great place to be.
- HUD - radar, score, damage display
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