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.

Hello Ludumites,

I am of course doing LudumDare's 43rd event, and will be jamming with Dizzy who will be doing art/content. Tools used will certainly include my custom built, C++ framework for rapid 2D game development.

Other likely tools: * Photoshop / Illustrator * Audacity * Visual Studio / VSCode / Xcode * Tiled?

I may, or may not, stream during the event but I do gamedev livestreams on twitch every morning of every day; and will be doing some bits of prep before the event mixed in with the big air combat racing game in development as my second indie project!

After my first attempt at Ludum Dare last August, I'm really excited to get ready for this new challenge. I'm not sure how well I will do considering I have my mock GCSEs at the end of December, but I feel like this will be a lot more relaxed considering I now know how it works. Good luck everyone!

Good luck to all participants and have maximum of fun :-)

I slaughtered all the themes ... the poor!

This is going to be my first game jam and I am going to have a blast.

I'm curious to see what got through the first filter.
Honestly, I'm kind of excited. Yeah, obviously there were the usual terrible themes in the bunch, and this time there were a lot of them, but when I was going through every last suggestion in the Slaughter Round, there were some really good ones, too. As I've said, I made reservations for "lesser evil" themes just because I see gameplay-style-enforcers as that bad, but I took special care and enjoyment in approving the really nice "Classic" feeling LD Themes. The ones that were very open to interpretation and felt like a cozy, mysterious letter title written to a software dev dungeon keeper, and the rest of the letter was in Voynich characters. And then Notch makes a game out of it.

Now, going on Wikipedia today, I find that my perceived olden dayes of Ludum Dare themes being cooler was an illusion that my brain came up with because it likes myths. There's a complete list of themes used before here, and I only perceive 7 of them as being the aforementioned ones.

• "Light and Darkness"
• "Caverns"
• "Islands"
• "You only get one"
• "Beneath the surface"
• "Running out of Power"
• "The more you have, the worse it is"

Not barring other good ones, these are the themes in the list that made me think "Classic LD!" and then go on to unwittingly fabricate memories about how common they were.
But what I'm getting at is, there were other themes that I thought the same way about during my extensive stay in Theme Slaughter. I'm sure I found at least two themes that were much better than "The more you have, the worse it is".

Unfortunately, there are plenty of bad themes that were accepted into the main part of the contest historically, and the very specific "Build the level you play" was actually one of them. Who knows, maybe Classic Cozy themes will majorly come into fashion some day, not long after we bite the bullet and have to make a four-colour black and white 2D platformer with unintuitive controls where you can't stop moving. Over here, I'm looking forward to the possibility of voting in a theme that gets the imagination going places, but doesn't tell you exactly what to do.

When I get a theme like this it's an obvious YES. These are the only themes that should win, like this was the only YES I did. Just Kidding :ok_hand:

For future reference, a simple AHK script can automatically click no and you can just have it stop whenever you see one you like!

1 color, escape from ...., and game dev

me and my friend are very excited and have gotten support from friends

I'm finally done! Really excited for my first Ludum Dare, hoping for a great theme :D I think I've been merciful with the themes (: I kept 33,6% of them

Happy 43rd Ludum Dare everyone!

For the first time in LudumDare .Hope to be able to smoothly,And upload at least able to complete work.

I am solo in this jam. Pretty pumped to make a great game!

Hello everybody! We are looking for a team member that could help us with music and sound effects. We currently have programmer, designer and artist and are just looking for the last piece :smile: If you're interested, or know somebody who could be, let me know so I can add you to our team! Cheers!

My History with LD:

LD40: Competed in my first LD Compo

LD41: School took away my time to create the game. Did not attempt.

LD42: Right before college started, tried to rush something together. Ultimately the theme beat me.

LD43: Now. Finals are in 3 weeks from now, 2 weeks from when LD ends. I will attempt LD43 anyways.

Good luck all.

As usual:

Unity Game Engine, Blender, GIMP, Boscaceoil, sfxr

P.S. Please no godlike llamas...

where are our brains people.

Hello, I am a music producer, programmer, and sound designer looking for a dedicated 2D graphics artist to work with as a team. If you are interested, contact me on Discord at Alkali#5245 :grin:

It will be our first attempt to produce something. No stress, let's just discover how it works !

Some might call me overly critical, but I just think they're just overly negative people...

Time: one week before the jam.

Status: feel being able to create a game on any possible theme.

I've decided to include my classmates in this jam. None of them have experience with any game engines. They do have experience with Java programming.. So, I'll be using Unity since C# is similar to java and I'll be doing most of the Unity stuff itself.

We'll see how it goes!

Everyone here falls somewhere on this chart...(This is not accurate by any means)

I can only write code. That's it. That's all i do.

I usually grab assets from the asset store or make some reallly basic stuff on blender so it would be nice to find some people who can work with me! :D i'm looking for anything: from a 2d game artist to a sound designer. if you're just the opposite, comment down below!

Man that felt much longer than it probably should've but it's finally done. I tried to be more... "generous" this time round but I just ended up being as strict as always.

For reference, last time I upped 108 themes. So I'm proud to say that I have become 0.8% more lenient since the last LD woo! To be fair the last slaughter had around 400 more themes (No that's NOT necessarily a good thing) but I really felt kind while going through these. Well, little did I know.

Surprisingly few of the usual, "colour", "old theme", or "memes" but I noticed a rise in "islands" and "control based". If the slaughter had an auto-no filter (type in "colour" and all "colour" themes get no'd) mwah that would be so useful. The theme will suck anyway, yadiyadiya you know the drill.

Here are some of my favourites(ish):

• Color (Colour)

• Running out of Running out of Themes

• Just keeps getting worse

• Quickie with a Stiffi UGH

• Gamophobia (Game+phobia=Gamophobia=fear of commitment XD)

• James Edward Oglethorpe

• Indie AAA Game

• Cats in space with Lasers

• Are you sure?

• Worst Game Ever

• portals (not teleporters, but Portals!)

• Will Smith

Here's a strange idea that I'd like too see tested in practice: themes in an image format.

Imagine that instead of giving 3 lines of text as a suggestion to LD theme you would have to upload 3 images. I bet that would make Theme Slaughter Round a bit less stale. :smile:

Well, ummmm. I'm in. So here's the part where I copy + paste my list of programs that I use: Inkscape(https://inkscape.org/en/)
Piskel (https://www.piskelapp.com/)
Beepbox(https://Beepbox.co)
Bosca Ceoil(https://boscaceoil.net/)
Chiptone(sfbgames.com/chiptone/)
Unity(https://unity3d.com/)
Microsoft Visual Studio(https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/)
Eclipse(www.eclipse.org/downloads/eclipse-packages/)
Sublime text(https://www.sublimetext.com/)
Blender(Blender.org)
Spectacle(https://www.spectacleapp.com/)
MampFor website testing, if I do WebGL
The google chrome sweet(google.com)
Garageband(https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/)
Trello(Trello.com)
Audacity(https://www.audacityteam.org/)
Imovie(https://www.apple.com/imovie/)
FireAlpaca(firealpaca.com/)
Itch(Itch.io)
Hitfilm Express(https://fxhome.com/express)
BlueStacksAn Android Emulator
Xcode(https://developer.apple.com/xcode/downloads/)
Android Studio(https://developer.android.com/studio/)
Discord(https://discordapp.com/) [I guess It can be counted as a development resource]
Github(github.com)
Backup an sync from google(https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/)
A Calendar app that I made to keep myself organized(No link, sadly)
Skype(https://www.skype.com/en/)
Malwarebytes... I guess (https://www.malwarebytes.com/)
VirtualBox For Linux testing
Gamejolt(Gamejolt.com)
Unity hub(https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/01/24/streamline-your-workflow-introducing-unity-hub-beta/)
LMMS(lmms.io)
WinZipFor macClick here
And finally: Magica Voxel(https://ephtracy.github.io/)
I like to make 2d puzzle games. ")
Enjoy you 43rd Ludum Dare! The last X-mas Ludum Dare! No! Why can't we have them in June and December? I guess it's whatever works for Mike. I just really enjoy the Christmas atmosphere.

I cannot wait! It's going to be a super special

I guess I was pretty open to a lot of these themes this jam. Pretty much if it was remotely interesting or amusing I thought "okay, i'd like to see someone try this". Well... maybe a lot of it was filtered through a sadistic glee of wanting to see people struggle with something. Schadenfreude.. that'd make an interesting theme.

Or just to see what three thousand games about Lasers looks like.

Did I break something or is the theme voting already over?

I went through all of the themes from Round 1 of theme voting; while most were astonishingly bad, some seemed like they could be viable.

Useless superpowers -1 - Basically "Inconvenient Superpowers."

Break the cycle +1 - I could see a wide variety of games being made from this; it provides quite a bit of freedom but isn't too vague.

Don't trust the game -1 - Leads to a lot of gimmicky games that give you inaccurate instructions, making gameplay difficult.

Absorb your enemies 0 - "Absorb" gives a wide variety of meanings; however, the theme restricts to games with focus on enemies.

No killing allowed -1 - Would probably end up with a lot of games that normally involve killing but that element is removed creating a huge hole in gameplay; otherwise provokes no ideas.

One item, many uses +1 - This theme could be very powerful.

You are the princess waiting to be rescued in the castle -1 - Pretty much all games would specifically have to be set with a princess in a castle.

Take one, leave one +1 - "One" can be a lot of things; however, it has to be taken or left. Not too broad or too narrow.

Scavenger -1 - Eh.

Control the environment, not the player 0 - This could cover a lot of ideas; people might abuse it and make a bunch of generic block-based puzzle games.

Indirect combat 0 - Kind of like "No Killing Allowed" but with a lot more possibilities and less terrible gameplay.

You're the final boss -1 - Yuck.

Permanent damage -1 - Too restrictive while being too vague; I have no ideas from this.

Automation +1 - This could be a lot of things.

Discovery (LD 19) -1 - Who the heck submitted a theme from a past Ludum Dare in the first place and how did it get to Theme Voting?

It only changes when you aren't looking -1 - Too restrictive while being too vague; I have no ideas from this.

:snowman:

Geta Game Jam will be occurring in just ONE month!

• Make a game either individually or as a team
• Share your progress with the #GetaGameJam hashtag
• Become apart of our wonderful discord community

And I am pretty sure we are not going to decide on a good theme, but on the least hated one hehe.

These are some pretty bad themes :anguished: Most themes I saw during the slaughter were either trying too hard to be subversive/edgy, or were one-liner game/main mechanic ideas.

Themes should generate possibilities and ideas not restrict them.

A good thing too keep in mind when coming up with theme propositions is to stay short and as low-level as possible, often a single word is enough! Let me show you how efficient that is, try to come up with a game idea while reading each of these and see how quickly a cool idea can appear: Gargoyle! Purgatory! Angle! Pulsar! Icons! Slowdown! Trip! See? :smile: The English language is a godsend for this, because of the high amount of meanings behind each word (which is also its weakness, time flies like an arrow fruit flies like a banana :upside_down: )

Anyway, here are my votes, hope the next round will be better.

Did not expect the rounds to start now. Anyway! Mildly optimistic Nutty is in the flow ready for the final build to LD43!

*Useless Superpowers (-1): *Very uninspiring. I don't mind themes which are heavily based around an adjective + noun combo but this doesn't strike me as very "interesting"

*Break the Cycle (+1): *Glad to see that one of the themes I upped in the slaughter made it to the theme voting rounds, one of my big favorites. So many possible interpretations, just on the base-line there are questions to be answered, "What Cycle?", "What does it mean to 'break' this cycle" "How, do I break this cycle". Love this theme.

*Don't trust the game (-1): *Very 'meh' for me. I'm just thinking of the amount of purposefully irritating games that could come from this.

*Absorb your enemies (-1): *Too specific. Moving on.

*No killing allowed (-1): *Too restrictive. Moving on.

*One item, many uses (0): *Getting kind of sick of seeing this theme every single Dare. It has potential, not even a bad theme, just not my thing.

You are the princesses waiting to be - NO - NO - NO (-1)

*Take one leave one (0): *Maybe too specific. Probably too specific. I just think nothing with this one.

*Scavenger (0): *I really like games that have a scavenging aspect to them, however I feel as a theme it's slightly to specific. You can slap the adventure/ collect genre on nearly anything. But I'll probably like the games that will come from it.

*You Control the Environment, not the player (0): *A theme I've grown an odd pseudo-relationship with since again it's appeared on every single LD I've participated in. I used to love it, but now I feel way too restricted by the noun 'environment', replace it with 'scene' or 'world' and I'll prefer it.

*Indirect Combat (0): *It's a fun idea. Really everything I want in a theme, but then again I'm thinking of those who don't wish to make violent games in general. Maybe I'm getting too much into the specifics but "Indirect Damage" would be a better theme.

*You are the final boss (-1): *Trash.

*Permanent Damage (0): *Ugh. Too much of a mechanic, luckily for it, it uses the noun "Damage", but. Ugh. I don't know. Slap a 0 on it.

*Automation (+1): *Just a solid theme. Open for interpretation, specifies at least 'one thing' that needs to exist in your game, not boring or gimmicky, just good.

*Discovery (-1): *Too vague. WAY too vague. Every game ever made has some sort of 'discovery'. Me finding a new enemy in a platformer is 'discovery', knowing how to get points is 'discovery', me finding out that one must press "X" to jump is 'discovery'. Nothing here for me.

*It only changes when you aren't looking (-1): *Man I love sentence long themes so much. Especially ones that describe a game that already exists (hint hint Red Light, Green Light). Just boring.

Well, it's better than that one time I didn't +1 a single theme last time round (no I'm not negative (OK? LEAVE ME ALONE) the themes were genuinely THAT bad). Also, quickly placing my bet that "Islands" will be in Round 2 and that "Button" will be in Round 3, I'm placing all of my -1's on it (haha).

if this but not inconvenient superpowers gets into the final round i will commit game-end

Hey everyone!

This will be my sixth Ludum Dare! I haven't participated since LD38 where I got 31st Overall and 19th Fun. I was super happy with how that one turned out and I'm pretty excited to try and beat that record. I'll be live-streaming the whole process, so grab some friends and popcorn and let's make a game! https://www.twitch.tv/frenchie144

Cheers! Max

...uh, everybody. But Hindbodes is in as well, with his Hindbodes hole. Not a dark, slimy hole full of worms. It was a Hindbodes hole, and that means comfort. And cute DOS-era graphics.

I'm going to make sure I prepare a good base to work on top of, so I can add plenty of levels without running out of time. A lot of people do an "endless level" or procedurally generated, but I almost always go with fixed, human-created lengths of level-by-level format. 'Tis how I roll. My biggest struggle is platformer collision.

Just wanted to know this before it starts. I'm making a game solo but I remember hearing somewhere that I need to link the source code if I'm going solo. Is this true?

This is my second time with Ludum Dare, and game jams in general. I had a lot of fun last time, but I feel like my game could've had a little more work put into it. Let's hope for a better game this time! I'll be doing the compo because I don't have time on Monday, and because I like the challenge of the compo a little more.

Tools:

• Code: Java in Eclipse
• Art: Paint.NET
• Sound: Sfxr and/or Audacity and/or FamiTracker

[Deleted]

Traditionally I would join at least one Ludum Dare a year. LD42 sounded too perfect too miss, but I got hung up on some technicalities and in the end failed to even get started, so I decided it wasn't for me.

This leaves LD43 as the final one in 2018 for participation, and I feel a lot better prepared!

Still in doubt about the Jam or the Compo, but that also depends on the final theme and the ideas that are floating around in the days before.

Technical stack

• Gine (V3, own game engine, published open source), TypeScript
• HTML5 / TypeScript with the Parcel-bundler
• Visual Studio Code

• PikoPixel / GIMP for arts, still looking for better alternatives
• Audacity for any sound design, if any...

Will be streaming and tweeting about it as we get closer at https://twitch.tv/Bjeaurn and https://twitter.com/Bjeaurn

See you this weekend!

Whatever sounds ambiguous and novel without going too wide gets +1. I don't do '0' otherwise we'll end up with a compromise no one likes.

• Useless Superpowers sounds quirky and fun with tons of outcomes and enough ambiguity.
• Break the cycle gives a clear goal which can take any shape or form.
• One item, many uses encourages strong design by getting more out of one thing.
• Take one, leave one choices are fun to build around and this is nicely limited.

Even though we are trying to release our LD42 idea in early access on steam in december (click if interested), I (Alex) might be in for LD43 - probably alone.

Unfortunately it depends on the theme and different other circumstances. I can't tell for sure yet. But if I'm in and the theme fits my idea I got in my mind, it will be a real challenge and something new. Probably VR...

Hyped!

Hi all,

I was just wondering - how much and where to upload...

I plan to just put my Unity Project folder (incl. sound and gfx) and a complete build (from Unity) on OneDrive and publish a shared folder (shared for 2 months or so). I intend to share both as Zip-files.

Would this qualify under the Compo rules?

Have a nice day all :)

I see everyone downvoting this but I actually found it to be probably the most interesting one of all. 👀

I can see it being interpreted in a lot of different ways besides the obvious "game with damage and health system but no heals"… The damage doesn't have to be to an individual but could be to an item or to the world, for example. It can even be completely thematic as opposed to mechanical, such as a game about dealing with trauma.

Just some food for thought! 😶

I went Preview before clicking Save, and ended up losing the entire post, be careful this may happen to you. Big thank you to a program called Process Hacker for helping me recover the entire post from the memory, I couldn't be arsed to write it all again otherwise.

Useless superpowers -1 - Yes just force the whole story line on me

Break the cycle +1 - Good theme, can cover a wide range of genres, also can be interpreted in both extremely safe and extremely experimental ways

Don't trust the game -1 - Don't want to see a bunch of joke games

Absorb your enemies -1 - Was tempted to give it zero. Though it can be interpreted in several ways, as a whole it is lacking pieces to make an all around good theme

No killing allowed -1 - Who said anything about killing?

One item, many uses -1 - Great theme for one game, bad for thousands

You are the princess waiting to be rescued in the castle -1 - How did this theme even survive the slaughter? Quick, my pistol! Shame on all of us, after all that bragging of slaughter well done. It would be funny if I couldn't think of 10 good themes which didn't survive the slaughter because of this piece of crap. In case you don't see problem(s): it defines the story, the setting, and the main character, AND what she does, and with which motive, very funny.

Take one, leave one 0 - My wisdom stops here.

Scavenger +1 - Not my favorite but something I can live with, decent potential for interpretation, if too many games end up in a similar setting blame the pop culture.

Control the environment, not the player 0 - It is a good theme in a way but defines genre too much, you can even say it is a bad theme for LD. But I'd rather have it than some other themes so not going with -1.

Indirect Combat -1 - Who said anything about combat? Tbh I can live with this theme, and sure it can be interpreted, but my guts tell me -1.

You're the final boss -1 - Keep your great game ideas to yourself, I don't want to play through 1000 versions of your game.

Permanent damage -1 - On first sight this is just game mechanics for a limited amount of genres, on a second thought the potential for story writers is great. But apart from mechanics for action games and potential for story driven games about people getting psychologically hurt, or some environmental thing, it lacks pieces to be an all around good theme, -1

Automation 0 - Can live with, hope it doesn't win.

Discovery +1 - Maybe this theme is lacking for those who wish to have their gameplay mechanics very much limited by a theme, but in general it is a good and inspiring theme which can be interpreted in number of ways, and inventive people might even come up with a gameplay related interpretation.

It only changes when you aren't looking -1 - Not a horrible theme but I feel some people may actually quit the event if it wins.

I always say it but this time it's true, I'm going to make something fun for you. 3d or 2d makes no difference to me, as long I have fun who cares if it's crappy. By Andy. My own theme I'm incorporating into the chosen theme is Don't Die.

If someone needs webspace for your ldjam games with unlimited traffic (for free of course) just contact me via commenting or on twitter: @vvujood

Depending on if my workload increases massively or not, I'm tentatively in. There's only a finite number of other responsibilities I can ignore. This is the first time I've ever done something like this but I can probably come up with something in the time limit.

I want to try and put either a grappling hook or parry mechanic in somewhere, so fingers crossed on the theme making that easy...

My weapons of choice:

• Unreal (Engine)
• C++ (Code)
• FL Studio (Music/SFX)
• Near non-existent art skills
• Possibly misplaced optimism

Feeling like I am sort of definitely maybe in. Hoping for a theme that makes my mind up. See you on the other side potentially.

I will be doing another compo and streaming it on twitch.

Looking forward to streaming all your games too. Be sure to follow my twitch account and come submit your game so I can stream it after the event!

https://www.twitch.tv/tiger_j

Hello there, ignore this post, my comrades need to follow me to make a team!

After seeing so many good themes in the slaughter, I was sorely disappointed in the first round of the voting. We can hope that the community comes through and selects a good theme, but that hasn't worked very well in the past.

I'll be using Unity, VS Code, and Bfxr for my second LD.

I'll be entering the compo.

I won't have as much time on Sunday, so my game will be very smol.

All I really know about my game is that it will be Christmas-themed, a web build, and made in Unity. It will of course also be coded in C# and if it's 3D, its models will be made in Blender.

Just trying to understand the rules better here. Unity has art and music assets that I'm sure don't fit the rules, but the code requirements are unclear to me.

Can I use, say, the Unity Third Person Controller in my Compo game, or do I need to write my own?

First time I'm probably joining the LD, always developed something with the given theme though.

Got my tools at the ready: .
Unity,
VSCode,
Girlfriend (Art),
Popcorn

Hello! After dipping my toe into the jam pool for the first time this year, I've become thoroughly hooked. First time doing a Ludum Dare; really looking forward to it.

Weapons of choice: * Code: Godot v3.1 alpha 2 * 2D: Aesprite/GIMP * 3D: Blender * SFX: SFXR/LabChirp/Audacity

Greetings and salutations everyone! Myself and @drekler are back at it again, except this time we are bringing on some new talent! I welcome @equisstenchman and @squiglypig to their first jam. I can't wait to get in there, tear it up again, and see what amazing things everyone comes up with.

Tools: * Unity * git * Photoshop * Illustrator * Audacity * TexturePacker * Clip Studio * Character Animator or Spine or Puppet2D

Did the Fragile/Invulnerable become just fragile - don't seem to remember a fragile only ;)

I'm in for LD43 Compo after being unable to participate in the previous 2 LDs this year due to scheduling conflicts. That means my previous (and also first-ever) LD was last December for LD40.

Plan this time around is largely similar in terms of tools I'm planning to use: - Unity (likely Unity2D) and VisualStudio for engine/code - GIMP (for spritework) - Git/Github (for version control and distribution)

My goal for this LD is to at least get a ranking, as last year I fell a bit short of the needed reviews on my entry Financial Burden, but the experience was still worth the effort!

Here's to another Compo and another weekend of code!

Hello everyone! Games To Play At Your Funeral here. You may (but don't) remember us as BlackCode, creators of the ~~widely acclaimed~~ Kamil the Cat series. It's been a while since our last Ludum Dare entry so we're super pumped to create something for the upcoming one!

Here's the team: * Kacper "kacperski1" Herchel - that's me :cat: * Maciej "Macron" Ziółkowski - @macron * Krzysztof "Fluffeu" Dobrzański - @fluffeu

And as for tools we're going with: * Godot 3 as the main tool. We always went with SFML but decided we need something with proper web export sooo yeah. * Inkscape, Krita and GIMP for vector, raster and raster graphics, respectively, * LMMS for music, * Git for version control.

We're targetting Web & Linux as our main platforms but I'm pretty sure we will provide a Windows executable as well.

For the first time ever we've decided to actually meet irl for the jam, hopefully that increases our productivity to previously unknown levels :D

I think that's all I wanted to say. Have fun everyone!

Hi guys, Themes look awesome and I'm looking forward to designing my game. I'm going to be using: - Unity - Visual Studio - MagicaVoxel - Bosca Ceoil (anyone know how to pronounce? :smile: ) - Vectr / GIMP

It's been too long since I finished one of these! Had to miss many and those that I didn't I wasn't able to finish for various reasons.

Looking forward to finally being able to give one my full attention again!

Code: Haxeflixel + Lycan Art: PyxelEdit + Photoshop Audio: Reaper

Hey guys it's my first LDJAM any advise?

Is it me or has the theme potential gone up in round 2 ... feel free to say the opposite ;)

Slightly optimistic Nutty here! Round 2! Here we go! Bit more decisive than last time... uh.. yeah!

*you can only move or see, not both (-1): *I see @pov hates this theme too (unless the theme names were never fixed for grammar/ English anyway). I mean, it's basically everything I hate in a theme: too confusing, too long, too boring. Not much else to say.

*Magic, but at what cost? (0): * Very simple theme with a potential for a lot of variety: story wise and game play wise, Magic is a bit too general and generic for me, this has a nice pointer added to it, though it's not exactly my thing. I abstain!

*Alchemy (0): *I decided to do some research for a quick definition. All definitions point to the use of "Magic" which automatically drifts me away from this one. I would much prefer 'mixing' over Alchemy as there's a lot more variety that could be found right out of the bag (granted, it is a bit vague). Very meh for me.

*Darkness is your friend (-1): *Specifies that there must be darkness. Specifies that this darkness must be useful to the player in one way or another. Too restrictive for me, "Light" would have been a better noun to use since Light is generally used as a more general term (blasting with light, dim light, even no light which is basically darkness) while Darkness simply refers to a 'lack of' light.

*Gameplay described by title of a song (-1): *Stupid, Gimmicky, No - Moving on.

Ancient Technology (-1): sigh

*60 seconds (-1): *60 seconds what? 60 seconds to eat? 60 seconds to finish? 60 seconds to - it's too vague WAY too vague. Let me think of 3 games which are all wildly different to each other and barely use this theme but still fall under 60 seconds:

• A stock exchange game where depending on the way your characters interact with the world will affect how rival companies perform. Oh yeah, stock markets update every 60 seconds.
• A top down production line game where every 60 seconds more raw material is provided by you
• A simple web-page which has a counter which continuously goes down from 60 seconds to 0.

This theme will only work for meta-joke games.

*Fragile (+1): *I can see how some people will call this theme 'one word vague' however compared to themes such as, "Discovery" or "Magic", Fragile is definitely something with a more 'set' definition. While Electronic could almost be described as "Magic", Fragile doesn't have that same reach. Also I really like the idea of making a game where something breaks, or breaks easily. I like breaking things damn it!

*Corruption (+1): *I always liked games which explore the idea of corruption; Papers Please, Tropico, Just Cause; it's one of those things that's just perfect for a video-game, because no one wants to experience corruption, but the corrupt'er' is the one having all the fun. Less vague than Fragile too. So... there's that.

*Making Connections (+1): *A perfect theme if you ask me. Open for interpretations, services practically every genre while still clearly defining what the main purpose of the game should be. I hope this makes it to the finals. Connections could be seen as: physical, mental, implied. And then the question of "how" these connections are made. Favorite one of the bunch!

*Floating Islands (-1): *FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHY CAN'T THIS STUPID PISSING THEME JUST GO AWAY? WHY FLOATING ISLANDS? WHY MUST THE ISLAND BE FLOATING? WHY NOT JUST ISLANDS? IS THERE SOMETHING SO ATTRACTIVE ABOUT 'FLOATING' ISLANDS? AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE? EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. LUDUM DARE.

*Mythology (-1): *Ehh. Not my thing. Probably won't be attractive to a lot of other people either.

*Every play through builds on the last (-1): *Verging on game mechanic, just slightly off, still restricting as hell, also every time I read this theme I think of rogue-lites. Not the best impression for an 'interesting' theme.

*It's not a bug it's a feature (-1): *The word 'trash' isn't enough to describe this theme let me quickly hop on Thesaurus.com (not sponsored ;)) to find something synonymous. Ehh... balderdash, hogwash... malarkey? Sure!

*Decay (+1): *Basically the same as last LD:

This theme has amazing “Fill in the Blanks” potential. What - is decaying? Why - is it decaying? How - will it affect the game? Filling in the “it” part and in general answering the questions will create a huge pool of potential games. It also doesn’t completely dictate the flow of the game. You could make a game where one of the major game mechanics involve decay and it still would be in the bounds of the theme.

*Limited Resources (-1): *Too specific. I'm not sure how one measures how limited you are of resources especially since in most games your resource gain scales with how far you've made it. In Civ, if you make just +3 gold a turn at the start but then by the end you make +450 gold a turn (since that's just how the game works) how am I actively meant to measure how scarce I am of resources? It's not a measurable theme.

I'm honestly tempted to just go out next time round, suggest "Floating Islands", "4 Elements" and "Two Buttons" just so I can proudly say all 3 of my themes made it through. Every single time.

LD37 - Unfinished RPG about guy who tries to make a game in his room.

LD39 - Platformer about robot searching energy crystal on Mars.

LD42 - Not very challenging match3 game about inventory management.

Now LD43 is almost here and I will try it out once again. In terms of tools my usual setup is: * Godot (3.0.x, not ready to use alpha) * Krita * I really wanna make some music this time, so will use SunVox if I feel adventurous enough.

Good luck to everyone, let's make some cool games!

This is going to be my first time in Ludum Dare, but I'm still very excited. I'm going to use tools like unity, visual studios,photoshop,ect. Good luck everyone!

I have a theory. 'Floating Islands' is a planted honeypot theme and if you +1 it all of your votes are immediately discarded.

Mouthless Games's tip for LD43: Go the path nobody else dares to go.

Hehe, besides the joke, the original art is made by Sebastian Wagner

It's my first game jam, and second game published at all! Wish u all good luck! Any advices?

This is my first time joining Ludum dare, any tips or stuff i should know?

This is going to be my first ludum dare.

Wish you all the best!

First timer in LD and my second total game jam. Hope we all have lots of fun

Volcanic Giraffe here again, going to make something great.

We are going to use again old good Phaser 2 for coding (maybe for last time - Unity tutorials await us), Photoshop for graphics, Audiotool for music and hot pizza for eating.

Let's have some fun!

By the way, this month we updated our Protolife Game on Steam. That game has grown from LD38. So let's watch how many new titles appear after this LD :smiley:

Good luck everyone!

@ddynamix , @Erienyth are in for their first jam and i am in for my second LD! We will use

UNITY , PS , GIT , BLENDER (?)

wish you all well in the jam!

Last LDJam this year, and probably my last Game jam this year.

Been a real busy year for me since starting Uni, but i am certain my code will be permanently better from now on!

@Handuer & @tobloef is with me this time and we're team ITUwU.

They'll be coding in C# (Don't know their text editors).

We'll be using Unity Engine 2018.2.17f1(Newest version).

And i'll be using FL Studio to make sounds and music.

And probably going with PyxelEdit for our pixelart graphics!

Have a good LDJam everyone, and stay safe, look after yourselves! <3

This is my first game jam, and really first attempt at making a game. Had been intending to enter LD since 41, but now is when I finally feel like I have enough knowledge to be able to make a decent attempt at whatever theme gets thrown our way. Hoping for the best!