Brian Badger vs Zombie Snowmen from Mars iOS, iPad game

As part of our company's operations, we always undertake one 'initiative', which is basically a project designed to teach us a new technology or experiment with something we're unfamiliar with, without it having to cost a client. The idea being that such projects will form the foundation for a service or product we offer such clients in the future.

Brian Badger vs Zombie Snowmen from Mars is one such initiative. We wanted to see if it was possible for the small, young team at our studio (with no prior game development experience), to make and release a mobile title in barely in a month, just in time for Christmas.

The gameplay itself is being kept very simple - you are a badger, you shoot zombie snowmen. So we admit it's fairly cliche as far as Christmas stories go, but we're sticking by it.

As we're operating on an incredibly tight deadline, we've taken measures where possible to simplify and reduce development time, but also give the game a unique look and feel. For example, all our textures are being painted by hand, using acrylics before being scanned and wrapped around our models.

That might not sound particularly efficient, but our main artist has much more experience in traditional painting than photoshop, so her work is not only giving our models a fairly unique sense of style, but it's also coming out much quicker than if we had her learn and adopt more standard techniques.

We've also completed work on the game soundtrack, for which we've gone for a film-noir jazz feel, with just a subtle hint of Christmassy jingles to bring a bit of context to its overall vibe. This is also because our creative director is an absolute Grim Fandango nut, and insisted we create something that would pay homage to his favourite game.

We will continue to publish all progress updates here, but if in the meantime you'd like to learn more about our company and the work we do, please visit our official web site at www.edna.uk.net.

Thanks for your time.