And here is my #FediJam3 entry, ''Sail and Sell"! Play it on itch.io:
https://cookie-chr.itch.io/sail-and-sell
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gamedev I don't know if I'll finish this game for FediJam in time, but I'm REALLY glad that in the end I got this working!!
GIF
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Things that are surprisingly easy to explain: gradients and the sobel operator. Not so intuitive: dot and cross products.
In other words, there is now some terrain shading.
I still kind of like the voxel-ish 2d look - porting the terrain to Babylon.js or PIXI seems totally feasible and the smart thing to do. I'm just scared of how it will change the look and feel.
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A video from the gameplay so far. Yes, there's a treasure marked by the X on the other end of the map.
Happy with the wind and steering mechanics. Realistic, a bit arcade style exaggerated, tough but playable. Takeoffs are possible if ugly, landings are... not so soft.
The terrain rendering - currently all 2D sprites - is hitting some limits on mobile, so I probably have to look into some of the accelerated libraries. Currently I'm taking shortcuts and scaling down FOV when that happens, because we want to focus on the fun parts. Refactoring is for when the kids are sleeping...
We're thinking of adding badges for achievements and sightseeing goals. That'll allow us to add lots of things to discover.
So, recently, when my kids again asked about "learning to program", we came across the amazing #microstudio IDE¹. You develop your games online, collaboratively, in Microstudio script (or Lua or Python), and it can export to web, desktop or mobile.
They were familiar with #Scratch, but the next step into using actual code - syntax errors on top of the logic errors - is always daunting.
So, after a few experimental projects in different directions, and building on the microstudio jump & run examples, we decided to join this month's #FediJam (#FediJam3) and hoist the sails.. 
We're now one week in. It's been a fun venture into not only programming, but also managing expectations, focusing on a game mechanic and essentially what the player sees. Not too heavy on the programming for them (dealing with syntax errors is tough), but the collaborative IDE allows them to interactively change everything and discover the effects, and to contribute with game assets and see how they magically (cough) pop up in the game. Highly recommended!
So now we spend a good part of the weekends sitting around the family table, each on a laptop, cursing like pirates, tinkering and playtesting. Arrgh!
