It’s a banger theme. I’m begging.

If you twisted my arm and made me rank the themes, I'd say:

1. Signal
2. Overgrown
3. Absorb
4. Strange machines
5. Salvage
6. Tiny Creatures
7. Shelter
8. Sanctuary
9. Limited space
10. Paths
11. Folklore
12. Locks and keys
13. Underground
14. Reflect
15. Keep the light on
16. Break the cycle

Though (happily) I don't even mind if 16 wins, so... hyped for LD54!

It's an average theme. I'm begging

I tend to prefer more gameplay focused themes, but I'm curious to see what people do with a more narrative focused theme, so doesn't suit me but I'm interested. Very much on the fence with this one

At the risk of being potentially bad luck, I've changed my mind on a few things: narrative-heavy games deserve their time in the sun, and games writers deserve to have a jam where they feel like an essential part of the team. With that in mind, let's go folklore! <3

Me, mommymephala, and xdcloudy teamed up for this jam. We are game design students, and we've participated in a few game jams before, but this will be our first one in a while. We will do our best.

For this year LudumDare I will be participating with my team @Vakarsson and @poshaus and @Gabexiii

I'm striving in the Compo again for this LD. My usual tools -- with a new one, thanks to the folks on this board that pointed out Beepbox. * C++ with SFML 2.6.0 (in MSVC) * GIMP for the graphics * SFXR givin' the sweet sound effects * Beepbox because I always try to push into something new during Ludum Dare * Trello for keeping organized

A few changes happened since my last Ludum Dare. I updated SFML to the latest stable release, and am really enjoying the library. Also, I have been trying to study and improve my pixel art, and forcing myself to restrict my palette to a maximum of 32 colors. The final theme will determine what palette I choose. Here is a rich gallery of video game pixel art palettes and color theory: https://lospec.com/

We've had fifty-four consecutive Ludum Dare jams where writing and narrative have been treated as an afterthought relative to the other parts that go into making a game. How about we throw our community's narrative designers a bone for once?

Unless you guys would rather play through several hundred games about absorbing things or locks and keys for some reason.

Obligatory I'm In post!

• Code: THREE.js / Bitecs / Rapier.js / Netlify
• Content: Blender / beepbox.co / Audacity / Krita

• Family / kids / obligations :soccer: :martialartsuniform:
• Finally decent swell in the water :surfer:

Here are my ideas (so far) for each theme. I have at least one for every theme except Folklore. I'm still not entirely sure what to do with that one. If Folklore wins, I'll probably just use ideas for another theme and apply folklore creatures to it.

Feel free to use any of these, since they're just basic ideas, and even if multiple people were to use them, the execution would be very different.

When I make my game, I'll probably end up combining multiple ideas, maybe even from different themes (but obviously focusing mainly on the actual theme).

• Get to a shelter before night
• Defend a shelter from waves of enemies

• Complete the same set of challenges in a loop, but keep certain abilities from your previous run

• Survival game where you must live only in resources found underground

• An interdimensional portal that brings monsters into the human world
• Collect strange machines and use them for combat

• Choose from multiple branching paths, each of which has different pros and cons

• Follow the signal - if you lose track of it, it's game over

• The enemies are plants that became sentient and turned into monsters
• The player is gigantic
• The enemies are gigantic

• Basically the same as "Shelter", so any Shelter ideas would apply to Santuary as well

• Survive only from remains
• Craft from parts of broken down machines
• Use scraps to keep a fire lit

You have no weapons made for offense, you can only defeat enemies by reflecting their attacks * Enemies can transform into a clone of the player in their current state

• I would go with the same ideas a "Paths", but require a key for each path, adding an extra choice of whether to go back for another key or choose an inferior path

• Use items you find (around the world? from enemy drops?) to create electricity and keep a light powered - if it runs out, you lose

• You play as a tiny creature in a world that looks gigantic, and must defend yourself against insects who are the same size as you

• The playable area continously shrinks and you must hurry before it eclipses the exit

• You regain health and/or stamina by defeating enemies
• You absorb the power of plants

It's a pretty good theme, but could be better. I'm begging

Tools:

1. GameApi Builder (meshpage.org/meshpage_4)
2. meshpage (meshpage.org)
3. SDL (www.libsdl.org)
4. libfreetype (freetype.org)
5. tinygltf (github.com/syoyo/tinygltf)
6. emscripten (emscripten.org)
7. stbimage (github.com/nothings/stb/blob/master/stbimage.h)
8. glew (glew.sourceforge.net/)
9. php (www.php.net)
10. C++17 (bjarne)
11. chromium (www.chromium.org)
12. docker (www.docker.com)
13. ubuntu (ubuntu.com)

-

I'm in after a long time away. Will be crash coursing Godot as I depart from using Unity.

Engine: Godot 4

Language: GDScript & C#

Art: Krita and Blender

Like many of you I will be using Godot to learn it. Not coming from Unity, mostly JavaScript, Pico-8, Scratch, Python, Twine.

Will probably be using Krita and/or Shimmy for graphics (https://dethe.github.io/shimmy/).

Haven't done one of these for a few years, will be good to get the dust off my coding fingers.

Here's how I voted this LD. I hope one of the themes I liked wins, but I know I'll hate it if it does anyway!

Hey guys, it's been a while!

I see there have been some changes left and right in how the site operates. Been fortunate enough to get a team together for this edition so I'm pretty excited too! I see that new accounts now require an invitation code in order to register but so far have no idea on how to generate these for my team so suggestions are welcomed.

Other than that I look forward to playing everyones entries!

I'll preface by saying I doubt Folklore is going to win. and personally don't care if it wins.

I am, however, interested in dispelling fears that you might have for game/mechanics

The following types of games can be folklore

Counting-Out Games (Eeny Meeny Miny Moe)

Clapping Games (Pattycake, Stella Ella Ola, Quack Dilly Oso)

Playground Games (Hopscotch, Squid)

Knife Game

All the games I list above have elements of folklore in them, often passed down from person to person, and we don't know the exact origin, only estimates. They often have variants of the game and if you look for an "official" rule, you can't find one. The only official rules are the tradition you carry.

Notice, a lot of these game are children's game (besides Knife Game). they fall under the category Childlore, a subset of folklore.

Also, by Squid, I'm talking the game used in Netflix's Squid Game.