Play it here, if you haven’t already.

What went well:

• Using Box2D with libGDX.  It was so easy that I’m almost ashamed I didn’t try it sooner.
• PID controllers.  The thought occurred to me from my engineering courses and I’m still surprised at how well they worked.  Three of them are used in controlling the saucer (tilt, torque, thrust), and each victim goat has one for tractor beam simulation. The camera class uses one, too.
• The little noises from the saucer?  I used my Gollum impression (yes, that’s me) and ran it through GoldWave’s mechanize filter.

What didn’t:

• An unfinished enemy (fighter jet) that was to chase the saucer around.  The code as it exists now is so hilariously unstable that it made the game nearly unplayable.  With an hour left in the compo, I had to cut it out.
• The beam visual effect.  Again, had the sprite done, didn’t have the time to get it in.
• Way too much time trying to get the terrain shader code to work…when the real problem was in how I was assembling the mesh.
• As mentioned in the comments, it definitely is more of a toy than a game right now.  The timer and score counter were quite literally added in the last minute of development.

What’s next:

• (As requested) Accelerometer-based control for the Android version.
• Better visuals.  Actually winnable gameplay.
• More victims.  And enemies.
• Google Play release…and Ouya, whenever it comes out.

Tags: post-mortem, postmortem