I am going to automatically downvote any theme that includes “is Key” out of principle, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
Whatever it is, we know it’s key. It’s the theme. Saying it’s key is redundant.
It’s like if you want the theme to include some element of timing, and you suggest the theme, “Timing is key and is very important and should be used”.
Just say “Timing”. Simple, concise, effective.
Please, take the few moments to look over your themes, and if either of them include “is key”, just delete that part.
You’re a programmer; you need to learn how to be concise.
Start here.
Imma try to make a game, no clue what program but aiming for something I can click into eachother- I have no experience in programming language. Suggestions are welcome! If it does not work then there is a next time.
Oh and themes! - Weather - Emergency procedure
Idk tf I can do, trynna gain skill and get inspiration to do smth, searching for a 3d enviroment artist role in game creating
◄Get out of hand ◄Better never than late
Although this might get swallowed up by LD theme suggestion posts, I wanted to let everyone know about a new series I started called "Dice Dev", where I'm learning Godot by rolling for random game elements and building a game based on what I rolled. There's also a link in the video description that takes you to a free download of the completed game.
(https://youtu.be/KpOqRzvo1Ic?si=Pf4vuTfEpEmJbYv-)
Glad to see the site up and kicking again, thought my browser was busted lol.
I came up with these in 2 minutes lol, but they're something
Very hyped to participate again! Sorry I couldn't think of anything relating to floating islands or that life is currency :smile:
Excuse the jpeg artifacts, I Have been sharing this to everyone I know! I present to you: the perfect themes:
~~This is satire~~
I think most people would agree that this would be a bad theme:
"Defeat a witch by burning the book that gives her power - also the book is hidden in a chest in the third room on the right"
Of course this theme would still produce a variety of games - one can easily imagine 2D platformers, 3D shooters, puzzle games, etc... being made from this theme. Maybe the only way to burn the book is by drifting so hard into it that your tires go up in flames in the racing game you made. If we ignore the lengthiness for a moment, we can still agree: No theme should completely give away the objective or content of every game you could make from it.
"Sulfur hexafluoride"
This is also a bad, or at least very weak theme. While it is more concise and less specific than our wizard theme, it still does not allow for any room in what the theme actually means. Maybe you can make a game about stealing sulfur hexaflouride, or a game about manufacturing sulfur hexaflouride, or a game about drifting so hard that your tires go up in flames in order to...
It's all about sulfur hexaflouride, because that word can only mean one thing.
So, I propose that a theme should be concise, nonspecific and have many homographs.
Homograph: One of two or more words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation.
An example of a homograph would be the word "tear", describing both "a drop of clear salty liquid secreted from glands in a person's eye", "a split in something caused by it having been pulled apart forcefully" and a few others. With this perfect definition of what a good theme is, I present to you the objectively best themes possible:
Ok, maybe this definition is not perfect after all - it seems we went too far with it. Too many interpretations are now possible: apparently the word "Run" has 645 different definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. The subcategories get so deep the numbering system for them starts with capital roman numerals, then to lowercase roman numerals, on to arabic numerals, latin letters and back to lowercase roman numerals, so you get fun headings such as
II.i.44.f.ii.
This rambling has, in a way, just lead us back to what everyone already knows: a theme should be open to interpretation, yet specific enough so you can't just make anything.
I think that there is something to learn from this though, which is: If you come up with a single-word theme, make sure that it has many homographs. If you can't name five (or let some ~~de~~generative AI come up with 20) it's probably a bad theme. What also seems to work nicely are words that are nouns and verbs at the same time.
"The theme always sucks" some might say and while that is true, I'm mostly writing this because I don't feel like voting on over 2000 themes again. (ok, to be truthful, I'm mostly writing this because I'm bored) I think it's alright to be a little elitist about what makes a good theme; I think it's alright to shame people a little who submit "You don't play as the main character" for the tenth time; I think it's alright to try and quantify the unquantifiable.
So what did I - in my oh-so-great-wisdom - come up with for themes this time around? 1. Cycle 2. Pass
I know they are maybe too generic and boring for most - and they certainly aren't perfect - but I appreciate boring themes. It's us who are supposed to give it life and make it interesting. So I advocate for less "Find a way to die", "Alien contact" and "Pyrotechnics" and more "Power", "Nest", "Order", "Break" or even "Cycle" or "Pass"
Hope everyone has a great Ludlum Dare again! Here's my theme suggestions, I'm actually proud of them and hope you like them too:
When it comes to suggesting themes, I hope you guys consider these nuggets of, err, not necessarily wisdom, but... Something.
Bad theme considerations:
A game mechanic is not a good theme (e.g. "jumping")
A genre is not a good theme (e.g. "first person shooter")
A graphics style is not a good theme (e.g. "pixel art")
A super broad thing is not a good theme (e.g. "universe")
A limitation may be a good theme, but not always
Good theme considerations:
Good theme is open to interpretation (e.g. "up or down?")
Good theme does not limit game genres ("racing" is more limiting than "speed")
Good theme does not limit cultural genres ("anime" or "cyberpunk" would do so)
Good theme applies to all kinds of graphics styles, or even other media like tabletops
Good theme may reveal itself after the jam is done as we see how people interpreted it :)
Not very original :sweat_smile:
Twitter is banned in Brazil, so I can't get the invite code to invite my friends. :(
This will be my 33rd ludumdare in a row. xD i started at LD24, hi. I’ll be using these this time:
IDE: Eclipse - Eclipse Foundation
Engine: LibGdx - Open Source, originally written by Mario Zechner
Graphics: aseprite/paint.net -david capello/Rick Brewster; Tiled - Thorbjørn Lindeijer; TexturePacker - main guy: Metaphore, also: tommyettinger, devjn, terafog, thefacecore, hangman and voidburn.
Fonts: FontForge - George Williams and the FontForge Project contributors
Sound: Audacity - Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg
Music: Cakewalk by BandLab
Timelapse: Chronolapse - keeyai
Another great event with gen con at the same time. That means my game will be more art than code! haha. Going to try to go simple! (which is hard if you know me)
After skipping LD55, I'll be back for LD56. I've been slacking off when it comes to game dev and I'm hoping this will be the impetus I need to get back into the swing of things.
As ever, I'll be working in either PICO-8 or TIC-80. I might use Picotron instead - depends whether the Lexaloffle site will actually let me download the latest version, because it seems to think I don't own Picotron when I do :stuckouttonguewinkingeye: Anywho, it'll be some flavour of 8-bit goodness, as usual.
Look forward to it!
Big news, all! A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!
Also, I'm in for the next jam!