I've heard about Ludum Dare for years. I always heard it was a really inclusive community that emphasized making new and interesting games. Unfortunately, today has proven to me that although most participants still follow that philosophy and just want to make awesome games, there is an unfortunately non-negligible portion of the community around LD that is in it for some misunderstood glory, they're salty, and willing to play dirty to get it.

2 weeks prior to LD41, I joined a game development community because they were hosting a game jam open to beginners. I had dabbled in game development for years, but never actually finished a project, so I decided to take the leap. I joined, participated, and made my first game. It was fantastic. I felt amazing. Such a sense of accomplishment. So when LD41 came around 2 weeks later, I decided to try my hand at the jam again. This was my first LD, and I'm officially vowing never to participate again.

That community has been very supportive. It's posted advice videos online daily for over a year. It's done feedback streams. It's hosted interviews and conferences. All kinds of great information and resources to help a newbie like me finally make the leap into game development. Naturally, we play and rate a lot of each other's games. I mean, there were like over 3k submissions to LD41 after all. You have to start somewhere! As far as I can tell, people ask for ratings from friends all the time. They even ask in blog posts on the LD home page. Asking for ratings is very much normal behavior. You have to market your game if you want it to stand out from the crowd.

Surprisingly, one of our fellow members won in several categories, and did exceptionally well. It was a fantastic game that I loved and gave a perfect score. I should have never mentioned that I gave it a perfect score, because that information would later be twisted out of context to be used as evidence of cheating. Apparently, many people are upset that the game won in several categories. Players are going out of their way to ask streamers and content creators to talk bad about the game and accuse the developer of cheating. Does it look suspicious? Sure, the game snuck into the rankings with only 20 ratings. And I did post that I gave the game a perfect score despite its primitive nature. But to be suspicious of somebody and to outright accuse them of cheating and insult them in front of others are entirely different things.

I gave 5 games perfect scores. All 5 of those were from our community. Pretty good evidence, right? Wrong. Consider that maybe 25 out of the 30 games I reviewed were also from our members, and I did not give most perfect scores. Also consider that the 5 games I gave perfect scores ranked very highly with the LD41 community at large, so there is a strong correlation between my ratings and the results. This is what happens when you put all your faith in stats without understanding the underlying mechanisms. You extrapolate false truths. Which is bad enough as it is, but then to have the gall to go on some with hunt crusade attacking innocent community members who didn't even participate? Inexcusable.

Somehow, me liking a game has brought into question the integrity of lots of good fellow game developers, many of whom didn't even participate in this event, because people can't fathom why I would disagree with their ratings. Maybe because games are entertainment media, which appeal to people differently?

In my opinion, the loud minority of salty people who are angry they didn't win and can't accept that people have different opinions have soured this otherwise great event for me, and I can no longer agree to participate. Maybe once upon a time, Ludum Dare was about making games. Heck, it might've been that as recently as LD40. But LD41 is not that. It's not the score system which has been corrupted. It's people's dark hearts.