This will be my 17th time participating in Ludum Dare, and my 6th anniversary of my first! I was not suppose to be doing Ludum Dare this time because my wife and I had purchased tickets to the League of Legends LCS Spring Finals in Texas, USA. However, due to that which shall not be named, the live event was cancelled freeing up this weekend for one of my favorite things :).

I am likely the most prepared I have ever been for one of these. Instead of starting completely from scratch or spending the last few weeks trying to rebuild an engine from scratch, I am starting with the same base code that I used for my last Ludum Dare game. The code is here: https://github.com/srakowski/LD46 and is open for anyone to use.

For code: * C# & .NET Core 3.1 * MonoGame * Visual Studio 2019 Community

For graphics: * Aseprite (purchased today, ready to give it a go) * Paint.NET (use this a lot) * Inkscape * GIMP (if I have to)

For audio: * BoscaCeoil * SFXR * Audacity

Goals: 1. DO NOT IGNORE AUDIO OR LEAVE IT OFF TO THE LAST MOMENT. I've said this before, but I haven't followed through. Once I land on an idea I may start with making a song in Bosca Ceoil just to make sure I have something in the end. 2. Use a Shader or 2. A fella by the name of ManBeardGames on Twitter was nice enough to create a couple of basic tutorials to get me started with shaders in MonoGame. I feel compelled to make his effort worthwhile.

I think a general theme this jam is to start with the end in mind and build art & assets before creating the code. I think I may use this approach.

I'm happy to be at this again. I wish you all luck!