Hello again! As we reached position 76 in the graded category, I want to share some of our early design concepts with you! If you want to play before reading this, head over to our Ludum Dare page!

My team spent an hour and a half in our living room bouncing ideas off each other when eventually Sam (@cool-summit) came up with the idea of a SHMUP that ends with a twist. We decided to commit to that and so I grabbed the printer paper!

• Top-left: Getting the basic design down. This was seconds after I grabbed the paper, and wow, does it look bare bones. The concept of the ornament is can be seen with that filled in circle up top. No enemy types were designed yet either so I just drew circles to represent them.

• Top-right: Paper concept for the formation of our final boss. I won't spoil too much, but you'll notice this is pretty similar to what's in the game right now ;)

• Bottom-left: Our original concept for our "final boss". Instead of a classic SHMUP one like we have now, it was instead going to be a Space Invaders clone. Though it still had the similar mechanic we have in the released boss.

• Bottom-right: My original design notes for the enemy types! I actually didn't get to program for around 10 hours on Saturday (12:30ish pm to 10:30ish), so I instead designed everything on my phone's notepad. I remember writing these (and thinking up the funny names) on a bus ride to a radio museum haha.

A little bonus, even if it doesn't have much to do with design. This is a sneak peak on how I tested bugs with the angels and boss. Since every trapped angel spawned in 4 seconds (instead of the normal 120), I could grab them all right before I got to the boss!

And here it is finished :)

Make sure to give it a play over at our Ludum Dare page. Help us climb to the summit of the Jam tree!