This is perhaps the most disappointed I've been with Ludum Dare in years. I wasn't even going to have time to do this jam, and I was considering attempting a micro submission taking only a couple of hours just to do something, especially now that it's only twice a year.

But with this theme being one of the most frustrating in recent memory, and not a single theme having more upvotes than downvotes -- in my opinion something has to change. Maybe I'm in the minority, and if I stop doing LD it doesn't matter because more people will start and take my place, but there are so many awful themes and negative votes, and in my opinion no positive theme vote percentages is a serious thing.

I would LOVE if once per year, or even once every two years, some random person in authority outright chose a theme. I would far prefer that to the voting mess as is, where many or most people end up unhappy, and there's this weird mix of repeat themes or awkward themes.

Finally, someone might argue that one can be creative and make many games and do whatever with a theme, or ignore the theme, and obviously that's true. But, one of my biggest frustrations with occasional Ludum Dare themes is that most people seemingly do not consider how frustrating it will be to playtest 40+ games with a given theme. To get a decent chance at a rating, you're supposed to at minimum playtest 30-40 games taking a substantial amount of time on each game and giving a reasonably detailed review.

Now imagine (as I experienced) having to playtest like 30 games that are all operated with awkward 2-button controls. Or imagine playtesting 30+ games where you only have downgrades, not upgrades. Or imagine how awful games are where you have to pay your life as currency, and now imagine 30+ different games where you get to experience that frustration repeatedly.

It leads to unhappiness and negative ratings and sadness.