Welcome to Ludum Dare 51!

I would like to call this our "autumn", "fall", or "summer is over and it's cold now" Ludum Dare event, but that only makes sense if you're in the northern hemisphere like me. :sweatsmile: :earthasia:

Final Round Theme Voting has begun

Cast your vote here: :ballot_box: /events/ludum-dare/51/theme

For rules and other info, visit the event page here: :trophy: /events/ludum-dare/51

If you don't want to figure out timezones, the theme announcement is when the clock (top-right) reaches zero.

TIP: The ldjam.com website gets really busy before the Theme Announcement. We recommend you follow the official Twitter account, or sign-up for the E-mail Newsletter

SIDE NOTE: We should be moving the mailing list off Revue before the end of this year. Sign up or stay tuned for details.

NEW: Uploading and Embedding games on Ludum Dare!

I've been working closely with our sponsor Akamai the past few months, and I'm extremely excited to announce that Ludum Dare now supports game uploading and embedding!

If you'd like to embed your game on Ludum Dare, I HIGHLY recommend you familiarize yourself with how it works, and try it out! Our sandbox might be more strict than you're used to (no storage, no cookies, no external requests), but it was built with WebAssembly and SharedArrayBuffer support in mind.

We're nearly ready to let folks try it out, but between everything I've been working on, I still need to document it. :sweat_smile:

This thread is way too long, so uploading instructions and discussion will be over here: uploading-and-embedding-games-on-ludum-dare

I have a busy Thursday morning and afternoon ahead of me, but after that (roughly 24 hours before LD), I'll be inviting folks to beta-test and provide feedback on the upload experience. See the comments in the post above, and my personal Twitter for details.

Extra is back! The new casual Ludum Dare

In case you missed it, back in April we launched Ludum Dare's brand new format: Extra.

When submitting your game, you can now choose between the Jam, Compo, or the new Extra format. Extra is Ludum Dare's casual format. There are no winners in the Extra format, but you get to choose your own schedule. Create and submit your Extra games anytime between Friday September 30th and Friday October 21st--that's 3 whole weeks!! Submit early, and be a part of Ludum Dare's feedback process: Give feedback, and get feedback.

Learn more about Extra here: /events/extra-the-new-casual-ludum-dare

The results ceremony will be the next day on Saturday October 22nd (to give me a bit more time to prepare).

Rules updates: Extra format, optional Theme, Unfinished games

We'll be publishing a brand new version of Ludum Dare's rules soon (deja vu). The key difference is the inclusion of the new Extra format detailed above, but there are few other changes I'd like to highlight:

• You can now optionally opt-out of the Theme category. This is not required.
• Please only submit finished games using the Jam, Compo, and Extra formats.
• If your game isn't finished, choose Unfinished instead.

AI content generators in Ludum Dare? (DALL-E, Midjourney, etc)

Since April's event, the world of AI assisted tools has exploded. This "AI thing" isn't exactly new though, as technologies like deep-fakes have been in the news for years, photo editing software (and phones) have been shipping with AI assisted object removal, and graphics cards from Intel and NVidia feature AI enhanced up-scaling with some pretty stunning results. What's new is that it's even easier to use now. Just describe what you want, such as an a classy Ludum Dare inspired fruit jam.

Or a tragic-backstory hero enjoying a bowl of cereal.

It's rough, but the results are really impressive. I can't be sure where "Luud Lourid" came from, but bonus points for "Jam Dum". It's pretty amazing what can be done today, maybe a little terrifying.

There's a great community discussion over here about whether AI art generators should be allowed in the Compo. @caeonosphere ran a poll, and the results were far more split than I would have expected.

It's tricky because we've allowed and encouraged the use of content generators like SFXr since its inception, while also having no qualms with procedural generation tools like Houdini. The difference is that the "one click" results are more skillfully done now, versus mashing a randomize button until you're happy.

Again, this happened way too fast. I don't know about you, but I wasn't ready for this. :sweat_smile:

AI in the Compo might be an inevitability, but lets not jump the gun. Let's start slow.

• For Ludum Dare 51, lets not to use AI content generators in the Compo. Choose the Jam or Extra instead.
• We haven't reviewed any license agreement for any generators. It's up to you to figure that out.

As for Jam/Extra entries:

• We recommend that you opt-out of asset categories your team didn't create the majority of during the event.
  • Per the rules, we allow exceptions for things like fonts, samples, instruments, and team splash screens.
• ~~Use your best judgement, but if a tools input is a completely different asset class than the output (i.e. text to speech, text to art), it may not be fair to claim it the asset as yours.~~ Nevermind! I've been foiled by tools like Stable Diffusion's "Img2Img". :sweat_smile:
• Derivative works rules still apply, so any significant transformation an output make sensibly result in something you can take credit for. Use your best judgement.

It does pose an interesting question, whether an AI generator should be considered a co-collaborator or virtual team member. Not because we want to score them, but for curiosity, to be able to look back and see how many games benefited from the assistance of an AI. Similarly, it would be nice if we could lookup games made with assets by prominent open-art artists like Kenney.

Lots of interesting things to think about and explore here.

Sorry! No Ludum Dare 51 keynote. :cryingcatface:

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, we don't have keynote for Ludum Dare 51.

That said, Ludum Dare 50's keynote released late due to technical problems. If you missed out on our big Ludum Dare reunion special, I highly recommend giving it a watch. This was easily the most complicated video projects I've been involved in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC2KGu__2Ws

Thank you everyone that contributed. :wink:

Surprise 2023 schedule! New January event!

We have three events scheduled for next year, and one is sooner than you may think.

January 6th, 2023 weekend will be Ludum Dare 52. Ludum Dare 53 will be the April scheduled event on April 23rd, and Ludum Dare 54 will be this time next year on September 29th. That puts roughly 3 months between each event, with a break in July. The full schedule can be found in the sidebar.

January 6th was the earliest we could realistically hold an event. It's impossible to avoid all conflicts, but this date does avoid Christmas and New Years. It conflict with CES, and we slightly overlap with AGDQ. If you don't want to miss the AGDQ kickoff, you could create a Compo or Extra game. :wink:

Even More Mike

In case you're not sick of me yet (I would be), here's even more Mike.

• The Game of Jamming -- An article I was asked to write about my journey with Ludum Dare, some reflections of things we've done and seen past 20 years, and some of the work we've been doing with Akamai.
• Get Ready for Ludum Dare 51! What's new? -- An update where we first introduced uploading, some small process changes, upgrades, and the spam plan

I recently did an interview for The Developer's Edge on Akamai's YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENstyiK5Jwc

Ludum Deals!

If you'd like to try out GameMaker this weekend, we have a promo code that unlocks additional exporters. The promotion is good until October 6th. Just create a free GameMaker account, login, then click the link below.

https://gamemaker.io/account/promo/ld51 - NOTE: Click this link AFTER logging in

If you get an error telling you the code is already on your account, that's okay! That means you've used one of our previous codes.

Wrap-up

Gosh, I'm sure I've forgotten something, but that's enough from me. We'll see you Friday for Ludum Dare 51!