Well, here goes…

Building:
Okay… This went rather smoothly. I chose to use GameMaker, which I am highly familiar with, rather than PyGame or XNA (as I am still learning these), or a lower-level environment (o_o). I went in stages. I first built a mockup, then basic movement, then enemies and victory/defeat conditions, then a frontend, then sound, music, effects, and art, then I tweaked it and eliminated as many bugs as possible (thankfully few). I was able to run a lightweight timelapse program as well. Actually, now that I think about it, all 6 programs I used are built to be easy and quick to use: GameMaker, Paint Tool SAI (Paint for tablets), SFXR (you can use multiple sounds from this at the same time for better sounds; I did this in both my LD20 entry and this entry), Chronolapse, the Autotracker-C script (for music), and Schism Tracker (a .it compatible music synth program, perfect for replacing the beeps with instruments) Everything was smooth, I even got sufficient sleep and submitted my game to several sites and into the compo an hour before the 48-hour deadline.

Then, votes and comments meandered in… Universally, the game was fun and intense and the music and graphics were considered good. However, there was one very common complaint (EVERY comment, including my own, mentions it). This complaint is the very high and often sudden difficulty of the game (odd for LD especially). What makes this especially ironic is that during playtesting, the difficulty was even higher…

Contrary to public belief, the game is possible to beat, just extremely difficult.

All in all, the Ludum Dare (my 3rd, along with 19 and 29) went pretty well. Once my computer is fixed (which is why my Coolness is 0), I can address the complaints and create a gameplay video to entice more players (not that this will affect the competition)

Thank you for your time, for your votes, and your patience!

–Fenyx