What a weekend! I feel knackered, my bones ache, I have ran out of coke, my bed feels unused and my sofa feels worn out… was it worth it, I finished the game, so yes! This is my first LD and I think I have done it justice, I’m happy with what I made, I had time to polish it and get all the little bits in, including fixing the bugs I spotted.

In terms of following the theme, I think I was a little loose, I found the theme a difficult one to go for, so I just headed for my first instinct “Make a game in space, that way I don’t have to animate anything” and then worked out some way to fit the theme into it.

My design process was definitely “fluid” in that I simply spent the first day, playing and adding features one by one, with only the vaguest of overviews of what I wanted to make and nothing written down, most mechanics came about simply by thinking to myself “It would be cool if…” and then going ahead and doing it, for once I wasn’t winging when a designer came up with an obscene idea… because I was the designer! I’m not sure if this is the best way to develop a game, perhaps (definitely) for a large project it isn’t, however for such a small tight project I think it worked well, I was never sat twiddling my thumbs “thinking” (a.k.a procrastinating), I was always doing something.

I chose to make the game black and white on purpose, I’m no artist so black and white meant I was guaranteed colors that worked well together and would look like they were meant to be, I then added splashes of bold color for variety and to add interest… I don’t think that turned out too badly!

Here’s a rundown of the tools I used in the end:

• Code – C# & XNA 4.0, chosen because I know it well and knew it would give me the ability to make whatever I wanted.
• Art – Photoshop, the standard really.
• Audio – BFXR for sound effects, Background music was made using an android app called “Plasma Sound”.
• Google Code & SVN for hosting, regular commits in case anything went wrong.
• A cafetiere for copious amounts of coffee.

And the finished product:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=7049

+1 goat (take a look in the screenshot above)