{"author_link":"\/users\/jejkobb","author_name":"Jejkobb","author_uid":"jejkobb","comments":[],"epoch":1712257893,"event":"LD55","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":384188,"likes":22,"metadata":{"p_key":"204322","p_author":"Jejkobb","p_authorkey":"1043351","p_urlkey":"439219","p_title":"What makes a good theme?","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD55","p_time":"1712257893","p_likes":"22","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1043351","us_name":"LDJam user 43351","us_username":"43351","event_start":"1712966400","event_key":"120","event_name":"Ludum Dare 55"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD55","removed_author":false},"_superparent":383062,"_trust":1,"author":43351,"body":"As I'm slaughtering I thought I would write a couple of my personal opinions for what makes a good theme.\n\n### When I think about the themes I think about:\n1. If the theme makes me excited to participate.\n2. How varied everyones games would be.\n3. If I would be excited to rate everyone elses games.\n4. How much freedom vs restriction it gives the developer.\n5. How many possible interpretations there are.\n\nAs an example, while slaughtering I saw the theme \"**Pirates**\". I honestly really like this theme even though it feels pretty generic, there are so many different aspects of being a Pirate, like cannons, the crew on board, mutinies, the boats, the swordfights as well as gunfights, treasures, exploring oceans\/islands, it could also be modern pirates, or cyberpirates. It is however very visually limiting, I think a lot of the games would look similar, which is not _as_ fun. But overall I would be very excited to see what games people make with this theme and I would be excited to rate them.\n\nA type of theme that I'm personally not a huge fan of are the ones that feel like rules. Like \"**Every** **10** **seconds**\", it felt more like a rule that I had to follow than a theme to inspire me. Even though the games that came out of that were really cool, to me it felt frustrating to think of something with that theme.\n\n### Theme measuring metric?\nI think the ratio of sign ups to submissions could also be a metric of what makes a good theme. If people aren't inspired enough to finish their game or even come up with one then I think that is a sign of a bad theme:\n![Ludum Dare SignUp to Submission ratio - Sheet1_pages-to-jpg-0001.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/759\/a\/z\/60a5c.jpg)\n\nIf we use this as the main \"good theme\" metric, then \"A Small World\" is our golden standard for themes (so far).\n\n### My favorite\nPersonally my all time favorite theme was Game Off 2022, which was \"**Clich\u00e9**\". It felt like a million possibilities but it's still a theme across all games, there are so many fun interpretations and you basically get to set your own limitations. I didn't get the theme at first but the jam hosts explanation made me really excited to make a game:\n![theme.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/759\/a\/z\/60a5d.png)\n\nAnyways I might just be overthinking this.\n\n## Questions for you:\n### 1. What do you think makes a good theme?\n### 2. What has been your favorite theme from previous jams? \n### 3. What theme would you be most excited for from what you've seen in the voting so far?","comments":2,"comments-timestamp":"2024-04-05T15:45:29Z","created":"2024-04-04T17:37:33Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":384188,"love":22,"love-timestamp":"2024-04-07T03:47:10Z","meta":[],"modified":"2024-04-07T03:47:10Z","name":"What makes a good theme?","node-timestamp":"2024-04-05T12:22:57Z","parent":384187,"parents":[1,5,9,383062,384187],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/55\/gladiatorium\/what-makes-a-good-theme","published":"2024-04-04T19:11:33Z","scope":"public","slug":"what-makes-a-good-theme","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":1195492},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"384188","n_urlkey":"439219","n_parent":"384187","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/55\/gladiatorium\/what-makes-a-good-theme","n_slug":"what-makes-a-good-theme","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"43351","n_created":"1712252253","n_modified":"1712461630","n_version":"1195492","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/55\/gladiatorium\/what-makes-a-good-theme","text":"As I'm slaughtering I thought I would write a couple of my personal opinions for what makes a good theme.\n\n### When I think about the themes I think about:\n1. If the theme makes me excited to participate.\n2. How varied everyones games would be.\n3. If I would be excited to rate everyone elses games.\n4. How much freedom vs restriction it gives the developer.\n5. How many possible interpretations there are.\n\nAs an example, while slaughtering I saw the theme \"**Pirates**\". I honestly really like this theme even though it feels pretty generic, there are so many different aspects of being a Pirate, like cannons, the crew on board, mutinies, the boats, the swordfights as well as gunfights, treasures, exploring oceans\/islands, it could also be modern pirates, or cyberpirates. It is however very visually limiting, I think a lot of the games would look similar, which is not _as_ fun. But overall I would be very excited to see what games people make with this theme and I would be excited to rate them.\n\nA type of theme that I'm personally not a huge fan of are the ones that feel like rules. Like \"**Every** **10** **seconds**\", it felt more like a rule that I had to follow than a theme to inspire me. Even though the games that came out of that were really cool, to me it felt frustrating to think of something with that theme.\n\n### Theme measuring metric?\nI think the ratio of sign ups to submissions could also be a metric of what makes a good theme. If people aren't inspired enough to finish their game or even come up with one then I think that is a sign of a bad theme:\n![Ludum Dare SignUp to Submission ratio - Sheet1_pages-to-jpg-0001.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/759\/a\/z\/60a5c.jpg)\n\nIf we use this as the main \"good theme\" metric, then \"A Small World\" is our golden standard for themes (so far).\n\n### My favorite\nPersonally my all time favorite theme was Game Off 2022, which was \"**Clich\u00e9**\". It felt like a million possibilities but it's still a theme across all games, there are so many fun interpretations and you basically get to set your own limitations. I didn't get the theme at first but the jam hosts explanation made me really excited to make a game:\n![theme.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/759\/a\/z\/60a5d.png)\n\nAnyways I might just be overthinking this.\n\n## Questions for you:\n### 1. What do you think makes a good theme?\n### 2. What has been your favorite theme from previous jams? \n### 3. What theme would you be most excited for from what you've seen in the voting so far?","title":"What makes a good theme?","wayback_source":[]}