as usual, i downvoted a large majority of the themes. i don't have any hard-and-fast rules for voting a theme up or down, although there are some common criteria i use (i think they're common to a lot of people having read some other responses).

i tend to vote down a theme that is overly specific ("pogo stick manatee restaurateur"), implies making a bad game ("bad controls", "loot box gambling"), or presupposes too complicated a game to make in 48 hours ("3D time travel platformer", "multiple-pathway narrative-driven JRPG"). additionally, some themes are not exciting or encourage too little variance in peoples' games, and i downvote those too ("Pac-Man clone", "procedural generation").

as a lot of other people have said, the themes i most often vote up are ones which can be interpreted a number of different ways - it's good if the phrase could be taken to mean a game mechanic or a thematic element ("navigation"). if, after reading the idea, i can immediately think of a half-dozen different game ideas that i could quickly prototype, i'll usually upvote the theme. same goes if the theme really captures my imagination or is really unique (although simplicity is usually key to this too).

let me know what you think of those criteria, or of any themes that really stuck out to you. what sorts of themes would you like to see in the future? i'd like to see more that hinge on a thematic suggestion rather than a mechanical one (since we get more different kinds of games), and ones that encourage unusual games to get made.

hope i can get lots of good practice in over the weekend (don't live in America so no visiting to do) and i hope you all can too. looking forward to helping choose a theme and making a game with you in a week's time!

To all those who have difficulty with English, I can highly recommend DeepL. It does an incredibly good job at translating texts in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Polish (sooooo much better than Google), and gives you an almost flawless translation using correct spelling and grammer (sometimes has trouble with English tenses). Hope this will be of use for the many German and French participants here, as well as those who might want to make a game with multiple languages. Feel free to spread the info and try it out for yourself!

Hey, people:

We're looking for a musician to join us: we're a scriptwriter, an artist and three RPGMaker experts. If you'd like to be part of our project or know someone who could be interested, please let me know ASAP.

Thank you!!!

I finally finished the theme slaughtering

Me and hopefully a buddy of mine are in and will be using unity. This is my second LD and I'll hopefully make a better game than last time when I did it while on holiday sailing

Hello everyone !

We just published our game POWERCUT, Inc. on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/944440/POWERCUT_Inc/

POWERCUT, Inc. was first developed for LD39, and we got 3rd place ! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/powercut-inc

Here is a trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqaB3jyWdI4

Enjoy POWERCUTting and be sure to leave some feedback 🙂

I’m ieyfo, I run the Discord for Ludum Dare it was stared back for LD36 and we have grown as a community to over 1700+ members and growing more everyday. I personally love the community we have formed and I want you to become a part of it :).

The main goal of the discord is not to just chat but grow LD as an event. There are millions and millions of game developers yet so few participate in LD when it’s already huge. SO LETS MAKE IT BIGGER. We can use the server as a way to show other game devs what there missing from not participating in LD. Ludum dare is a way to connect game developers and the discord will expedite the process. We love having everyone chat and show the process of making there games both during Ludum Dare and there personal projects.

We have a new partner in recent times, we have partnered with the folks over at minijam to help bring EVEN MORE new people to connect with the ludum dare community. They have a channel where you can get a little more info on what there doing.

Two Ludum Dares ago we were asked to partner with crowdforge.io and now there Ludum Dare area has a direct link too our discord.

All the mods and Mike himself are in there so why not join?

Why Discord and why my discord for LD?

IRC what? Its 2018 its time to progress!!

Discord is an amazing place with voice chat, video chat, screen share, all super fast and better than anything Iv’e ever used. Also discord is amazing for sharing project assets or anything you wanna no need to link images like IRC just paste them in. You’re not just a name and a string of text you are you and people can easily get to know you.

Next why to join our discord well we are the biggest 1700+ strong and growing. In a non biased opinion the most fun and organized discord with section and channels for everything you could need whether you’re doing Ludum Dare or game development or programming in general we got you!

We hope to see you there V INVITE LINK https://discord.gg/9DrcQmg

Cross posted

Hey Ludum Dare! It's been a while. This will be my 9th Ludum Dare overall, but my first in over two years! For all that time, I was busy turning this...

...into this!

My entry for Ludum Dare 35 back in April 2016 became Temple Scramble, my first commercial release! It just didn't feel right doing another Ludum Dare while I was still in the middle of development on a game from a previous Ludum Dare. But I've missed this jam so much, and I'm thrilled to be back! My focus for this jam will be polish- in the past, I've usually spent so long getting the mechanics to work right that I barely have time to do anything else, and the game ends up with only the most barebones of content. This time, I want my mechanics to be simple enough that I can finish them in the first few hours (even if that causes me to take a hit in Innovation, which is usually my strongest category), so I can spend the rest of the time making the graphics look nice, adding levels (if applicable), and actually having music!

My stack will be the same that I used for Temple Scramble:

• Programming language: Haxe
• Game library: HaxeFlixel
• Text editor: Atom
• Graphics: Piskel (and GIMP if need be)
• Sound effects: bfxr
• Music: Bosca Ceoil

Since we're in the midst of the Theme Slaughter, I'll probably follow this up with a "why I slaughtered your theme" post like a lot of people here have been doing... but I've still got half of the themes to go. Good luck to everyone!

Ok, I missed/failed 2 jams out of the last 3. I won't this time. (And I have a midtem 2 days after the jam, I hope I won't fail that as well. hehe.)

And like my previous..... 9? entries, I'll be doing VR again!

I'm gonna keep pushing for VR entries folks, it's here to stay and needs more people experimenting!

See you next week, and good luck!

Tools of the trade as usual: Unity/MayaLT/SteamVR

At minimum support Vive wands, and Knuckles EV3 controllers. More bindings possibly set up by other people.

Dear Mates, i am definetly in.

I bought a Wacom for Pixel Art and have a mini32 for music. So it will be cool jam i hope.

Also i try to avoid my mistakes from the last both times: 1. If it is hard to play it is possible unplayable (and buggy) and not "hard gameplay". 2. More Playtest before release (if possible)

Last LD was kind of hard as I was not at home most of the weekend, this one should be fine, however I am now in grade 12, so I have way too much school work.

Language and Library: Java with Lib-GDX, or just normal Java 2D

Graphics: Paint.NET, Piskel, Inkscape

Music: LMMS, maybe Abundant Music or Bosca Ceoil. Depends on how much time I have left. Hopefully I have enough time to do something.

SFX: Might use SFXR if I have time or just Audacity.

Really sad to see the 3 LDs per year go :(, but it will still be fun. Sad to see that now the october challenge is can't really ever happen again as there is an LD in october.

Good luck everyone, and hopefully, as always, the theme doesn't suck. ;)

LD is starting a day after the deadline for a game I'm making in college, but I still wanna join so bad. Let's hope I don't die from exhaustion. Have fun everyone!!!

I'm in once again, but this time an artist will be joining me. So no more "programmer art"!

This is my 3rd Ludum Dare(in a row and ever), I've only been doing game dev for about 9 months and I'm having a blast! Hope everyone is excited about Ludum Dare 43 as I am!!

Hi, I'm in for the first time. Guys, let's make some awesome games.

GLHF

. I made it through, all themes slaughtered.