Haha, I keep seeing the same themes every four months. Why do we keep seeing “Afterlife” and “Chaos” for example, those are quite mainstream themes. And you can put some chaos in your game with every possible theme ! Even if the theme is something like “peaceful”, you can have chaos as an opposition to peaceful moments.

Of course there are always some original ways to use these themes, but most people won’t push the reflexion too far, and we’ll see the same kind of ideas everywhere. Like in “Evolution”, how many people did a game about getting stronger and bigger ? That’s already a concept present in many, many games.

I’m not the kind of guy that will say “oh, this theme sucks” because even if they disappoint me, there is always something to do. But I wonder why there is a theme slaughter if the ideas are the same every four months. For instance, latest Global Game Jame theme was the sound of a heartbeat. This leads in so many different directions, like rythm, blood, life…