I chose these themes because I focused on... wel the theme. The other choices feel a bit restricting on the game mechanics "you are the final boss", sounds cool, but sort of forces you to make a combat focused game. Something like "safe in the dark" has so many more possibilities, and if you use some word trickery "safe in the dark = vampires" BAM! You can literally make any game with vampires in it, and it would technically fit the theme. Or maybe something with nocturnal creatures, you can interpret "safe" in a few ways. The ones like "it's spreading" seem really awesome, because where is it spreading? The world? Your body? Your mind? What is spreading? Is it good or bad? Do you want it to spread, do you need to stop it from spreading? Is there some sort of trade-off for it spreading? There are just so many interesting possibilities.

I tried to participate in the previous ludem dare, but completely failed due to not being able to implement my ideas. So to the veterans, I want to ask, do you prefer themes that restrict the game mechanics to make it easier to code, or do you prefer more open ended ones that let you be creative?