{"author_link":"\/users\/niterich","author_name":"niterich","author_uid":"niterich","comments":[],"epoch":1585875803,"event":"LD46","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":181118,"likes":23,"metadata":{"p_key":"137942","p_author":"niterich","p_authorkey":"1056986","p_urlkey":"354233","p_title":"My ideas on what makes a good theme","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD46","p_time":"1585875803","p_likes":"23","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1056986","us_name":"niterich","us_username":"niterich","event_start":"1587081600","event_key":"77","event_name":"Ludum Dare 46"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD46","removed_author":false},"_superparent":176557,"_trust":12,"author":56986,"body":"**(Sorry for the wall of text. I've bolded the important bits if you just want to skim it)**\n\nSo the pre-Ludum Dare season is upon us once again, and you know what that means! Another slaughter round full of repeated theme ideas, followed by four rounds of elimination and a theme that no one ever seems to like. But how can we make the theme better? Well, I\u2019ve said in the past that we should revamp the whole voting process, but seeing as it\u2019s a little late for that now, I suppose we\u2019ll have to work around the system we have in place by educating people on what makes a theme good or bad. So, just in time for the slaughter round, here is my manifesto on what makes a good Ludum Dare theme!\n\nFirst, let\u2019s consider why we have a theme in the first place. From the official rule page:\n> \u201cLudum Dare is about encouraging you to make something. The theme is something we do to help everyone with the \u201cblank sheet of paper\u201d problem that artists and creators deal with. It\u2019s easier to make something with some direction than none.\n\n> [\u2026] while we don\u2019t enforce that your game meets some minimum \u201cthemeyness\u201d, the community does see significance in the Theme. So while we wont do anything about it, the community as a whole prefers games that do use the Theme. So as a general suggestion, if you want to score well in Ludum Dare, make sure you do use the theme in some way.\n\nSo **the whole purpose of the theme is to give everyone a common set of ideas to build off of**. It\u2019s to fill your head with all the potential of making a game over the course of a weekend. At the same time, it\u2019s meant to create a set of games with a common underlying theme, each uniquely shaped by our own interpretation based on our skillsets, preferences, and life experiences. So now the question becomes, how do we make a theme that promotes this kind of thinking?\n \nWell, I believe the **theme should be vague**. When a theme is overly constrained, it leads to fewer interpretations of the theme, which leads to fewer interesting games. This is especially true when the theme implies a certain type of play, or forces participants to adhere to a certain skill set. Take \u201cThe power of music\u201d, for example. Naturally, it\u2019s going to imply a rhythm game, right? Or focuses on an amazing soundtrack? Or at least one with a heavy emphasis on musicianship or musical allusions? Well, not everyone is able or willing to make a rhythm game. Not everyone is musically talented to write their own songs. Heck, some people don\u2019t even like listening to music! And there are tons of themes that force jammers to use a certain skillset: \u201cCombine 2D and 3D assets\u201d -not everyone can use a 3D game engine; \u201cJump is also attack\u201d \u2013 not everyone wants to make a platforming game; \u201cAmazing story\u201d \u2013 not everyone wants to write a story. My personal litmus test for this stage is, **\u201ccan I think of a platforming game, a visual novel, a puzzle game, and a first-person shooter using this theme? Can it work with both a multi-person team project and a solo dev with only 12 hours to work?\u201d** If yes, we can move onto the next stage.\n\nIn contrast to the previous paragraph, I also think **the theme shouldn\u2019t be *too* vague**. As the rules outlined, the community enjoys seeing everyone\u2019s interpretation of the same theme. This means the theme should be strong enough that it can penetrate through the entire design of a project. Thus themes like \u201cbased on song lyrics\u201d and \u201canarchy \/ no theme\u201d are terrible themes since, by definition, there will be absolutely no obvious underlying connecting thread to all the games (and, in the latter's case, doesn't help overcome the 'blank page' problem)\n \nI also believe **the theme should add to the design of games in a meaningful way**. Superfluous additions or constraints like \u201c2-colour palette\u201d or \u201cfemale protagonist\u201d could be applied to practically any game, and doesn\u2019t promote idea generation in the prototyping phase. And, combined with what I said before, it should be up to the participant to decide in which format they want to interpret it. Do they want to interpret \u201cSacrifices need to be made\u201d as a gameplay mechanic, a narrative element, or just a basic platformer with demonic cult graphics? I personally consider the last one to be a cop-out, but I still believe that this cop-out should always exist for the beginners who are unable or unwilling to make anything besides basic platformers.\n\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nOkay, so we\u2019ve determined what makes a good theme, but what makes a bad theme? Beyond not adhering to the above axioms, a bad theme can be identified with one or more of the following:\n\n-**Repeating a theme from a previous Ludum Dare**. Many of us are veterans of multiple Ludum Dares, and want to see innovation in the theme selection. Plus, what would be the purpose of choosing a theme in the first place if we\u2019re just going to recycle one from last time?\n\n-**The scope is too large**. Do you really expect people to create an MMORPG from scratch in 48 hours? Or write their own rendering code to \u201cmix 2D and 3D\u201d? Especially egregious are the ones that specifically ask to include too much stuff \u2013 \u201cFeature creep\u201d, for one. Or \u201cThe 4th dimension\u201d, where half the jam could be spend just learning what a hypercube is.\n\n-**Inappropriate topics**. This event is for everyone. We don\u2019t want to alienate any portion of our friends by choosing a topic that is violent, sexual, illegal, controversial, or otherwise inappropriate for this jam. I will add in religion and politics to this list as well, as talking about those topics on the internet is sure to end badly. (Note that I\u2019m not against these themes in your game, I just don\u2019t believe they should be the focus of every game)\n\n-**Themes that are too common and are, frankly, pathetic**. Some themes are just too weak to generate many truly innovative designs. \u201cYou are the weapon\u201d, \u201cOnly 2 button controls\u201d, \u201cgood thing is now bad\u201d; these themes show up multiple times at each LD, and they never get chosen for a reason. I\u2019ll also add themes that, once you think about it, are just basic video game logic. \u201cStart with nothing\u201d \u2013 as opposed to all the games that give all the weapons all at once? Or simple subversions of video game logic. They're cheesy and overdone, guys. \u201cYou are the villain\u201d, \u201cYou are the princess\u201d, \u201cPlayer cannot move\u201d \u2013 why even specify a \u2018player\u2019 when there are puzzle games that don\u2019t, strictly speaking, have one?\n\n-**Niche references to other media**. Not everyone watches JoJo\u2019s Bizarre Adventure, most people won\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about when you talk about making a game based on enemy Stands. Even if you quickly explain it to them, they\u2019re only going to have a basic idea of what that is, how are they going to generate an amazing cohesive idea from limited knowledge? This is especially true with memes, as they also carry the risk of being outdated by the time the jam actually occurs. In short, **if people have to Google your theme, it\u2019s not a good theme.**\n\n-**The title is too darn long**. Generally, the longer the title is, the more it\u2019s going to overdefine the game design and produce similar entries. Looking through the past posts, \u201cTake a feature from a dimension, and remake it in another one\u201d sticks out to me. The fact it mentions dimensions indicates using 2D and 3D, but also that the game should be more technical in nature, when many people just want to make simple platformers. I\u2019ve also seen things like \u201cLimitations (can\u2019t go beyond a certain level)\u201d being submitted, where the unbracketed text is too vague to really generate cool ideas but the bracketed text is overdefining the theme (in this case, \u201clevel\u201d suggests arcade stages or RPG leveling). Combined, the theme is unwieldly to say and look at, not to mention making the unbracketed text redundant.\n\n-**The title is too darn short**. From the opposite perspective, making the theme just a single word is sure to make it too vague to really inspire outside-the-box thinking. How many games require you to \u201cdestroy\u201d or \u201csurvive\u201d something? And what exactly do you expect me to make an \u201cunlimited\u201d amount of? and for what purpose? And how do other games exclude concepts like \u201clight\u201d or \u201cshadows\u201d such that specifically making a game with them is supposed to make me put on my thinking cap?\n\n-**Anything with misspellings or bad grammar**. This is kind of petty for me, but when you\u2019re trying to sort through 3000 themes, anything that could help make the selection process easier will be helpful. Correct spelling, proper capitalization, using words instead of numbers for numbers below 20, anything that could be held against a theme should be. Plus, if everyone voted like this, there\u2019d be more cohesion on whether \u201cOnly Two Buttons\u201d, \u201conly two buttons\u201d, \u201conly 2 buttons\u201d, \u201cOnly 2 buttons\u201d, and \u201conly 2 butons\u201d gets to go past the slaughter. \n\n-**You don\u2019t enjoy the theme**. Just because something is technically good doesn\u2019t mean you have to like it. If you don\u2019t want to work with a specific theme, simply don\u2019t vote for it. You don\u2019t need to explain yourself. Even if it\u2019s just a gut feeling, it\u2019s okay to throw that theme away. We\u2019ve got 3000, we can manage without it.\n\nSo, yeah. That's my personal guide to choosing a good theme. Do you agree with me? Based on some of the other posts I've seen posted in the past couple of days, I certainly know a few of you disagree with me on parts. I'd like to hear your opinions in the comments. Maybe we can finally make the theme selection process tolerable for once!\n\n(...or we can just give up and turn Ludum Dare into \"Floating Islands: The Game Jam\")\n","comments":14,"comments-timestamp":"2020-04-06T18:38:59Z","created":"2020-04-03T00:40:08Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":181118,"love":23,"love-timestamp":"2020-04-05T13:29:04Z","meta":[],"modified":"2020-04-06T18:38:59Z","name":"My ideas on what makes a good theme","node-timestamp":"2020-04-03T01:03:23Z","parent":177726,"parents":[1,5,9,176557,177726],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/vaccinator\/my-ideas-on-what-makes-a-good-theme","published":"2020-04-03T01:03:23Z","scope":"public","slug":"my-ideas-on-what-makes-a-good-theme","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":539696},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"181118","n_urlkey":"354233","n_parent":"177726","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/vaccinator\/my-ideas-on-what-makes-a-good-theme","n_slug":"my-ideas-on-what-makes-a-good-th","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"56986","n_created":"1585874408","n_modified":"1586198339","n_version":"539696","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/vaccinator\/my-ideas-on-what-makes-a-good-theme","text":"**(Sorry for the wall of text. I've bolded the important bits if you just want to skim it)**\n\nSo the pre-Ludum Dare season is upon us once again, and you know what that means! Another slaughter round full of repeated theme ideas, followed by four rounds of elimination and a theme that no one ever seems to like. But how can we make the theme better? Well, I\u2019ve said in the past that we should revamp the whole voting process, but seeing as it\u2019s a little late for that now, I suppose we\u2019ll have to work around the system we have in place by educating people on what makes a theme good or bad. So, just in time for the slaughter round, here is my manifesto on what makes a good Ludum Dare theme!\n\nFirst, let\u2019s consider why we have a theme in the first place. From the official rule page:\n> \u201cLudum Dare is about encouraging you to make something. The theme is something we do to help everyone with the \u201cblank sheet of paper\u201d problem that artists and creators deal with. It\u2019s easier to make something with some direction than none.\n\n> [\u2026] while we don\u2019t enforce that your game meets some minimum \u201cthemeyness\u201d, the community does see significance in the Theme. So while we wont do anything about it, the community as a whole prefers games that do use the Theme. So as a general suggestion, if you want to score well in Ludum Dare, make sure you do use the theme in some way.\n\nSo **the whole purpose of the theme is to give everyone a common set of ideas to build off of**. It\u2019s to fill your head with all the potential of making a game over the course of a weekend. At the same time, it\u2019s meant to create a set of games with a common underlying theme, each uniquely shaped by our own interpretation based on our skillsets, preferences, and life experiences. So now the question becomes, how do we make a theme that promotes this kind of thinking?\n \nWell, I believe the **theme should be vague**. When a theme is overly constrained, it leads to fewer interpretations of the theme, which leads to fewer interesting games. This is especially true when the theme implies a certain type of play, or forces participants to adhere to a certain skill set. Take \u201cThe power of music\u201d, for example. Naturally, it\u2019s going to imply a rhythm game, right? Or focuses on an amazing soundtrack? Or at least one with a heavy emphasis on musicianship or musical allusions? Well, not everyone is able or willing to make a rhythm game. Not everyone is musically talented to write their own songs. Heck, some people don\u2019t even like listening to music! And there are tons of themes that force jammers to use a certain skillset: \u201cCombine 2D and 3D assets\u201d -not everyone can use a 3D game engine; \u201cJump is also attack\u201d \u2013 not everyone wants to make a platforming game; \u201cAmazing story\u201d \u2013 not everyone wants to write a story. My personal litmus test for this stage is, **\u201ccan I think of a platforming game, a visual novel, a puzzle game, and a first-person shooter using this theme? Can it work with both a multi-person team project and a solo dev with only 12 hours to work?\u201d** If yes, we can move onto the next stage.\n\nIn contrast to the previous paragraph, I also think **the theme shouldn\u2019t be *too* vague**. As the rules outlined, the community enjoys seeing everyone\u2019s interpretation of the same theme. This means the theme should be strong enough that it can penetrate through the entire design of a project. Thus themes like \u201cbased on song lyrics\u201d and \u201canarchy \/ no theme\u201d are terrible themes since, by definition, there will be absolutely no obvious underlying connecting thread to all the games (and, in the latter's case, doesn't help overcome the 'blank page' problem)\n \nI also believe **the theme should add to the design of games in a meaningful way**. Superfluous additions or constraints like \u201c2-colour palette\u201d or \u201cfemale protagonist\u201d could be applied to practically any game, and doesn\u2019t promote idea generation in the prototyping phase. And, combined with what I said before, it should be up to the participant to decide in which format they want to interpret it. Do they want to interpret \u201cSacrifices need to be made\u201d as a gameplay mechanic, a narrative element, or just a basic platformer with demonic cult graphics? I personally consider the last one to be a cop-out, but I still believe that this cop-out should always exist for the beginners who are unable or unwilling to make anything besides basic platformers.\n\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nOkay, so we\u2019ve determined what makes a good theme, but what makes a bad theme? Beyond not adhering to the above axioms, a bad theme can be identified with one or more of the following:\n\n-**Repeating a theme from a previous Ludum Dare**. Many of us are veterans of multiple Ludum Dares, and want to see innovation in the theme selection. Plus, what would be the purpose of choosing a theme in the first place if we\u2019re just going to recycle one from last time?\n\n-**The scope is too large**. Do you really expect people to create an MMORPG from scratch in 48 hours? Or write their own rendering code to \u201cmix 2D and 3D\u201d? Especially egregious are the ones that specifically ask to include too much stuff \u2013 \u201cFeature creep\u201d, for one. Or \u201cThe 4th dimension\u201d, where half the jam could be spend just learning what a hypercube is.\n\n-**Inappropriate topics**. This event is for everyone. We don\u2019t want to alienate any portion of our friends by choosing a topic that is violent, sexual, illegal, controversial, or otherwise inappropriate for this jam. I will add in religion and politics to this list as well, as talking about those topics on the internet is sure to end badly. (Note that I\u2019m not against these themes in your game, I just don\u2019t believe they should be the focus of every game)\n\n-**Themes that are too common and are, frankly, pathetic**. Some themes are just too weak to generate many truly innovative designs. \u201cYou are the weapon\u201d, \u201cOnly 2 button controls\u201d, \u201cgood thing is now bad\u201d; these themes show up multiple times at each LD, and they never get chosen for a reason. I\u2019ll also add themes that, once you think about it, are just basic video game logic. \u201cStart with nothing\u201d \u2013 as opposed to all the games that give all the weapons all at once? Or simple subversions of video game logic. They're cheesy and overdone, guys. \u201cYou are the villain\u201d, \u201cYou are the princess\u201d, \u201cPlayer cannot move\u201d \u2013 why even specify a \u2018player\u2019 when there are puzzle games that don\u2019t, strictly speaking, have one?\n\n-**Niche references to other media**. Not everyone watches JoJo\u2019s Bizarre Adventure, most people won\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about when you talk about making a game based on enemy Stands. Even if you quickly explain it to them, they\u2019re only going to have a basic idea of what that is, how are they going to generate an amazing cohesive idea from limited knowledge? This is especially true with memes, as they also carry the risk of being outdated by the time the jam actually occurs. In short, **if people have to Google your theme, it\u2019s not a good theme.**\n\n-**The title is too darn long**. Generally, the longer the title is, the more it\u2019s going to overdefine the game design and produce similar entries. Looking through the past posts, \u201cTake a feature from a dimension, and remake it in another one\u201d sticks out to me. The fact it mentions dimensions indicates using 2D and 3D, but also that the game should be more technical in nature, when many people just want to make simple platformers. I\u2019ve also seen things like \u201cLimitations (can\u2019t go beyond a certain level)\u201d being submitted, where the unbracketed text is too vague to really generate cool ideas but the bracketed text is overdefining the theme (in this case, \u201clevel\u201d suggests arcade stages or RPG leveling). Combined, the theme is unwieldly to say and look at, not to mention making the unbracketed text redundant.\n\n-**The title is too darn short**. From the opposite perspective, making the theme just a single word is sure to make it too vague to really inspire outside-the-box thinking. How many games require you to \u201cdestroy\u201d or \u201csurvive\u201d something? And what exactly do you expect me to make an \u201cunlimited\u201d amount of? and for what purpose? And how do other games exclude concepts like \u201clight\u201d or \u201cshadows\u201d such that specifically making a game with them is supposed to make me put on my thinking cap?\n\n-**Anything with misspellings or bad grammar**. This is kind of petty for me, but when you\u2019re trying to sort through 3000 themes, anything that could help make the selection process easier will be helpful. Correct spelling, proper capitalization, using words instead of numbers for numbers below 20, anything that could be held against a theme should be. Plus, if everyone voted like this, there\u2019d be more cohesion on whether \u201cOnly Two Buttons\u201d, \u201conly two buttons\u201d, \u201conly 2 buttons\u201d, \u201cOnly 2 buttons\u201d, and \u201conly 2 butons\u201d gets to go past the slaughter. \n\n-**You don\u2019t enjoy the theme**. Just because something is technically good doesn\u2019t mean you have to like it. If you don\u2019t want to work with a specific theme, simply don\u2019t vote for it. You don\u2019t need to explain yourself. Even if it\u2019s just a gut feeling, it\u2019s okay to throw that theme away. We\u2019ve got 3000, we can manage without it.\n\nSo, yeah. That's my personal guide to choosing a good theme. Do you agree with me? Based on some of the other posts I've seen posted in the past couple of days, I certainly know a few of you disagree with me on parts. I'd like to hear your opinions in the comments. Maybe we can finally make the theme selection process tolerable for once!\n\n(...or we can just give up and turn Ludum Dare into \"Floating Islands: The Game Jam\")\n","title":"My ideas on what makes a good theme","wayback_source":[]}