Hi! Wow, is it really that time again already? Lets-a go! :postal_horn:

Final Round Theme Voting has started. Go over here and cast your vote:

:ballot_box: /events/ludum-dare/43/theme

For rules and other info, visit the event page:

:trophy: /events/ludum-dare/43

For those new to Ludum Dare, the website will become slow/unusable during the minutes leading up to the Theme Announcement, so we highly recommend you follow our Twitter account for the reveal:

https://twitter.com/ludumdare

The theme will be announced when the clock at the top this page reaches zero.

Busy-busy, site-work, Twitch

My apologies for being so quiet these past few months. Earlier this year I had to pick up some work, and lately we've been crunching, and we finally soft-launched a game a few weeks ago (heh). But as many of you know, the work doesn't end as soon as the game is released, and it's been keeping me busy... too busy. :sweatsmile: :sweatdrops:

Either way, I have 2 big things I'm working to fix before we kick-off on Friday.

1. Many of you will remember the downtime/poor uptime we had last event. Fortunately I've been knee deep in server work at work, exactly the kind-of stuff we need to survive a Ludum Dare weekend (high availability, clustering, etc). Unfortunately I don't have enough time to rebuild the entire setup (learned this the hard way weeks ago), but I'm shooting to at least get the database clustered, failing over, and running more smoothly.

2. Recently Twitch broke how we used their website (hence the endless spinner in the sidebar). I'll be doing my best to get that up and running again before Friday. The video aggregation used to be part of an esports aggregation project I was working on (privately), but if there's time I want to make that code public alongside the Ludum Dare sources.

That's the plan. ~~There might be a little bit of downtime tomorrow as I switch-over the severs, and eventually the video plugin will just work again.~~ EDIT: Servers upgraded... though not exactly as I wanted.

UPDATE: Oh! Well it seems Twitch's new structure is quite broken if you're an event like ours that needs multiple categories (art, "science"/code, audio, etc), so it's time for plan B: ~~Everyone, set your game to Ludum Dare.~~

The Ludum Dare "game" directory can be found here:

~~https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Ludum%20Dare~~

I've updated the sidebar as well, since the communities feature is now very dead. :sweat_smile:

UPDATE 2: I stand corrected. You can search by tags on Twitch, you just need the UUID. So, if you include a Ludum Dare tag on your stream, you will show up here.

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/all/tags/c8d6d6ee-3b02-4ae7-81e9-4c0f434941cc

I've again updated the sidebar to point here.

HOWEVER, the sidebar widget only shows the top 3 streams with their game set to Ludum Dare, so feel free to do that too. :wink:

Keynote, hosted by Christina Neofotistou (@christina-antoinette-neofotistou)

Keynoting our 43rd event is Christina Neofotistou, also known as castpixel over on the Twitters. I've been a fan of her pixel artwork for many years, and I was thrilled when she volunteered to do a keynote for us. For this keynote she designed a game, and collected a bunch of tips and tricks along the way, and compiled them in to a video. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B52QmMbiq3E

That's it for now. Final vote time!