Just to be fair, there are two LDs I couldn’t review cause I couldn’t find the initial round posts.

So, if we review Ludum Dare voting since we have converted to the +1/0/-1 system, we see some trends:

• The winners are always one of the top two themes from a previous round.
• 70% of them have been first place.

So what does that mean for this time…

Here are the two two themes in each of the rounds, ranked in order of score:

1. [+58] Technology out of place in Time (Or Anachronism)  (1st place Round 4)
2. [+52] Enemies as Weapons (1st place Round 1)
3. [+51] Cooperation (1st place Round 3)
4. [+50] Evolution (2nd place Round 1)
5. [+36] Rain (2nd place Round 3)
6. [+32] Hidden Depths (2nd place Round 4)
7. [+23] Claustrophobia (1st place Round 2)
8. [+18] Cloning (2nd place Round 2)

From this we can observe certain facts:

• About 300 or so people voted.   We will use this number for percentages.
• First off, obviously Round 2 sucked.   There were 3rd and 4th places in other rounds that outscored our two candidates from Round 2, so we can probably count them out.
• Evolution very often has a strong showing in the preliminary rounds, and then drops out at the end.  Plus it is believed that the world might end if the Ludum Dare theme is Evolution
• If we discount Evolution, there’s a 15 point gap between 3rd and 5th.  15 people is about 5% of the population, which would be a pretty big swing.

From this, we can pretty safely predict that Anachronism, Cooperation, or Enemies as Weapons will come out on top.