Game design is a war! When time is short and resources are few, designers have to get creative in their battle to make games great. This session explores, in post-mortem format, the various tools, techniques, and trickery used to maximize iterations on Big Sandwich's award-winning dragon game HOARD.

HOARD employed paper games, low-fi 2D prototyping, MS Excel level design tools, and a modular systems design approach to make its short 9-month core development cycle possible. Specific examples will be used to show how all of these tools - some conventional and some not - can be employed to maximize game design iterations even when time is stacked against you.

In addition to the post-mortem, selected game mechanics will be examined to show other lessons learned throughout HOARD's development.