Everybody's doing these, and even though no one cares about me, I'm doing one too. :-)

When getting scored, I'm most interested in seeing if the balance of my effort was well-spent. On one level, a game either works or it doesn't; in 48 hours, you get on a path early and it's hard to get off it if something isn't working, and that's at least 50% luck no matter how good you are! So ultimately, scores are most useful as measuring sticks of your relative effort in each category, rather than as a global rank.

Here's my commentary for Rogue Basement. (Compo game, so rank and percentile are out of 549 games with scores.)

Category | Rank | Percentile | Score | # ratings ---------- | ---- | ---------- | ----- | --------- Overall | 135 | 75.4 | 3.667 | 47 Fun | 179 | 67.4 | 3.409 | 46 Innovation | 379 | 31.0 | 2.841 | 46 Theme | 398 | 25.5 | 2.977 | 46 Graphics | 374 | 31.9 | 2.932 | 46 Audio | 24 | 95.7 | 4.000 | 44 Humor | 157 | 71.5 | 3.000 | 42 Mood | 94 | 82.9 | 3.659 | 43

Overall: 135 / 3.667

Not top 100, but about what I was hoping for. I made sure to make something "finished" and put thought into every category.

Fun: 179 / 3.409

I've got some real mechanics and good loops, so from an academic game design perspective I call it a success, but other games are definitely more fun than mine.

Innovation: 379 / 2.841

I made a very by-the-book roguelike with some very minor innovations. Frankly I'm surprised this isn't lower.

It's my lowest score but not my lowest rank, so I'm guessing the innovation category skews low in general for Ludum Dare.

My last LD entry (LD26, We Dreamers) got 6th overall in innovation, so I know I can do this category well! I just chose not to this time.

Theme: 398 / 2.977

My lowest rank but not my lowest score. I will admit to not worrying too much about the theme, because (a) it wasn't a great theme, and (b) themes are really just for inspiration anyway. Going into the compo, I knew I was going to make some kind of roguelike, because that was just what I was in the mood for, and the theme was just a framing device for that.

Graphics: 374 / 2.932

I don't care at all what I got in this category. I've always hated worrying about graphics for LD. Seriously, this is what I did last time. So players will either say "you did ASCII pretty well" in the 3-4 range, or "ASCII sucks" in the 1-2 range.

Audio: 24 / 4.000

WOO WOO OH YEAAAAAAH

The audio for this game is a 15-minute original soundtrack I wrote between midnight and 1:30am the second night of the compo. I guess people liked it!

I'll be putting more thought and energy into audio for my next LD game. It looks like this can be my superpower.

Humor: 157 / 3.000

Humor in my games has always been about covering for a lack of content or unbelievable set of mechanics. "I only have one level for my roguelike. Why? Because...oh, it's some idiot wizard's basement." I am pleased that people liked that aspect of it, but I put in essentially no effort.

Some of the humor scores might have been because it's possible to punch flying rocks out of the air, and some of the flavor text is not correct English...

Mood: 94 / 3.659

I would attribute this good score to music, consistent decent ASCII feel, and title screen art. I've always thought of this category as "how much does this game feel like the game it is trying to be?" and on that axis I was happy with how Rogue Basement turned out.