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I think it’s pretty exciting that the world did not end this December, because if the world had ended, there wouldn’t be any more Ludum Dares. In honor of the continued existence of the world, the theme for this Mini-LD will be:

The challenge this time around shall be to think outside of the computational box and to somehow put the real world into your game. This could take plenty of forms (I mean, there’s quite a lot of material in the real world – some of it has to be usable in a game) and is, as always, completely up to interpretation, although I would strongly encourage people to explicitly state what part of their game is from the real world.

A few fairly straightforward ways one might accomplish putting the real world into one’s game would be to create assets in the real world (like the beautiful drawing you see above), to base your game on some input method other than the usual keyboard+mouse, to use real data in your game, or to turn some specific phenomenon from the real world into a game. Or of course, one always has more options than that for incorporating the real world – the only limit is your imagination. Remember that the important thing isn’t to have undeniable evidence that your game is based on the real world, but to have an idea that came to you after thinking about things that aren’t computers.

The Jam will run from February 22nd to the 25th. Until then, keep an eye out for inspiration. After then, do something and submit it.

EDIT: Submission will end at (or at least no sooner than) 11:00 PM EST, which I think is typical of Ludum Dare. Feel free to start whenever you want on February 22nd.