Hi everyone! I am a programmer that made some game prototypes and my friend is a composer. Currently we are in need for an artist to join us! :art: We were planning on using Unity and the only requirement is to have fun :blush:.
My portfolio: https://nachodlv.github.io/nachodlv/
My Discord: Tuux#8476
(Sorry for the wall of text. I've bolded the important bits if you just want to skim it)
So the pre-Ludum Dare season is upon us once again, and you know what that means! Another slaughter round full of repeated theme ideas, followed by four rounds of elimination and a theme that no one ever seems to like. But how can we make the theme better? Well, I’ve said in the past that we should revamp the whole voting process, but seeing as it’s a little late for that now, I suppose we’ll have to work around the system we have in place by educating people on what makes a theme good or bad. So, just in time for the slaughter round, here is my manifesto on what makes a good Ludum Dare theme!
First, let’s consider why we have a theme in the first place. From the official rule page:
“Ludum Dare is about encouraging you to make something. The theme is something we do to help everyone with the “blank sheet of paper” problem that artists and creators deal with. It’s easier to make something with some direction than none.
[…] while we don’t enforce that your game meets some minimum “themeyness”, the community does see significance in the Theme. So while we wont do anything about it, the community as a whole prefers games that do use the Theme. So as a general suggestion, if you want to score well in Ludum Dare, make sure you do use the theme in some way.
So the whole purpose of the theme is to give everyone a common set of ideas to build off of. It’s to fill your head with all the potential of making a game over the course of a weekend. At the same time, it’s meant to create a set of games with a common underlying theme, each uniquely shaped by our own interpretation based on our skillsets, preferences, and life experiences. So now the question becomes, how do we make a theme that promotes this kind of thinking?
Well, I believe the theme should be vague. When a theme is overly constrained, it leads to fewer interpretations of the theme, which leads to fewer interesting games. This is especially true when the theme implies a certain type of play, or forces participants to adhere to a certain skill set. Take “The power of music”, for example. Naturally, it’s going to imply a rhythm game, right? Or focuses on an amazing soundtrack? Or at least one with a heavy emphasis on musicianship or musical allusions? Well, not everyone is able or willing to make a rhythm game. Not everyone is musically talented to write their own songs. Heck, some people don’t even like listening to music! And there are tons of themes that force jammers to use a certain skillset: “Combine 2D and 3D assets” -not everyone can use a 3D game engine; “Jump is also attack” – not everyone wants to make a platforming game; “Amazing story” – not everyone wants to write a story. My personal litmus test for this stage is, “can I think of a platforming game, a visual novel, a puzzle game, and a first-person shooter using this theme? Can it work with both a multi-person team project and a solo dev with only 12 hours to work?” If yes, we can move onto the next stage.
In contrast to the previous paragraph, I also think the theme shouldn’t be too vague. As the rules outlined, the community enjoys seeing everyone’s interpretation of the same theme. This means the theme should be strong enough that it can penetrate through the entire design of a project. Thus themes like “based on song lyrics” and “anarchy / no theme” are terrible themes since, by definition, there will be absolutely no obvious underlying connecting thread to all the games (and, in the latter's case, doesn't help overcome the 'blank page' problem)
I also believe the theme should add to the design of games in a meaningful way. Superfluous additions or constraints like “2-colour palette” or “female protagonist” could be applied to practically any game, and doesn’t promote idea generation in the prototyping phase. And, combined with what I said before, it should be up to the participant to decide in which format they want to interpret it. Do they want to interpret “Sacrifices need to be made” as a gameplay mechanic, a narrative element, or just a basic platformer with demonic cult graphics? I personally consider the last one to be a cop-out, but I still believe that this cop-out should always exist for the beginners who are unable or unwilling to make anything besides basic platformers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, so we’ve determined what makes a good theme, but what makes a bad theme? Beyond not adhering to the above axioms, a bad theme can be identified with one or more of the following:
-Repeating a theme from a previous Ludum Dare. Many of us are veterans of multiple Ludum Dares, and want to see innovation in the theme selection. Plus, what would be the purpose of choosing a theme in the first place if we’re just going to recycle one from last time?
-The scope is too large. Do you really expect people to create an MMORPG from scratch in 48 hours? Or write their own rendering code to “mix 2D and 3D”? Especially egregious are the ones that specifically ask to include too much stuff – “Feature creep”, for one. Or “The 4th dimension”, where half the jam could be spend just learning what a hypercube is.
-Inappropriate topics. This event is for everyone. We don’t want to alienate any portion of our friends by choosing a topic that is violent, sexual, illegal, controversial, or otherwise inappropriate for this jam. I will add in religion and politics to this list as well, as talking about those topics on the internet is sure to end badly. (Note that I’m not against these themes in your game, I just don’t believe they should be the focus of every game)
-Themes that are too common and are, frankly, pathetic. Some themes are just too weak to generate many truly innovative designs. “You are the weapon”, “Only 2 button controls”, “good thing is now bad”; these themes show up multiple times at each LD, and they never get chosen for a reason. I’ll also add themes that, once you think about it, are just basic video game logic. “Start with nothing” – as opposed to all the games that give all the weapons all at once? Or simple subversions of video game logic. They're cheesy and overdone, guys. “You are the villain”, “You are the princess”, “Player cannot move” – why even specify a ‘player’ when there are puzzle games that don’t, strictly speaking, have one?
-Niche references to other media. Not everyone watches JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, most people won’t know what you’re talking about when you talk about making a game based on enemy Stands. Even if you quickly explain it to them, they’re only going to have a basic idea of what that is, how are they going to generate an amazing cohesive idea from limited knowledge? This is especially true with memes, as they also carry the risk of being outdated by the time the jam actually occurs. In short, if people have to Google your theme, it’s not a good theme.
-The title is too darn long. Generally, the longer the title is, the more it’s going to overdefine the game design and produce similar entries. Looking through the past posts, “Take a feature from a dimension, and remake it in another one” sticks out to me. The fact it mentions dimensions indicates using 2D and 3D, but also that the game should be more technical in nature, when many people just want to make simple platformers. I’ve also seen things like “Limitations (can’t go beyond a certain level)” being submitted, where the unbracketed text is too vague to really generate cool ideas but the bracketed text is overdefining the theme (in this case, “level” suggests arcade stages or RPG leveling). Combined, the theme is unwieldly to say and look at, not to mention making the unbracketed text redundant.
-The title is too darn short. From the opposite perspective, making the theme just a single word is sure to make it too vague to really inspire outside-the-box thinking. How many games require you to “destroy” or “survive” something? And what exactly do you expect me to make an “unlimited” amount of? and for what purpose? And how do other games exclude concepts like “light” or “shadows” such that specifically making a game with them is supposed to make me put on my thinking cap?
-Anything with misspellings or bad grammar. This is kind of petty for me, but when you’re trying to sort through 3000 themes, anything that could help make the selection process easier will be helpful. Correct spelling, proper capitalization, using words instead of numbers for numbers below 20, anything that could be held against a theme should be. Plus, if everyone voted like this, there’d be more cohesion on whether “Only Two Buttons”, “only two buttons”, “only 2 buttons”, “Only 2 buttons”, and “only 2 butons” gets to go past the slaughter.
-You don’t enjoy the theme. Just because something is technically good doesn’t mean you have to like it. If you don’t want to work with a specific theme, simply don’t vote for it. You don’t need to explain yourself. Even if it’s just a gut feeling, it’s okay to throw that theme away. We’ve got 3000, we can manage without it.
So, yeah. That's my personal guide to choosing a good theme. Do you agree with me? Based on some of the other posts I've seen posted in the past couple of days, I certainly know a few of you disagree with me on parts. I'd like to hear your opinions in the comments. Maybe we can finally make the theme selection process tolerable for once!
(...or we can just give up and turn Ludum Dare into "Floating Islands: The Game Jam")
Given the whole precarious situation around the world, I wanted some themes to distract and provide a sense of comfort and normalcy. (Pls no more virus-related themes!)
Oh and #Masks4All and remember to stay safe everyone!
It was my first time ever joining the Ludum Dare Community and I wanted to test my brain to think some good themes suggestions.Here are my Theme Suggestions:
1.Two heads are better than one 2.Living 3.What Matters
I'll try to be as Active in this Community as possible with all the Things I have to do in my life.Good Luck in Ludum Dare 46!
As tradition demands, I decided to put together a simple wallpaper for LD46. I made a clean version and one that includes some of the gamejam tips I wrote before, as well as dark/greyscale variations, all in both HD and 4k.
Let me know if you end up using any of these! :smiley:
Wus going on gamers I don't get it?
Anyway, I thought I'd do what everyone else is doing and make a special wallpaper, so here it is! I hope you like it!
So... we doing this thing? I sure hope we are. It's two weeks away. I'm expecting to see news postings about LD46, the theme slaughter... anything. I seem them not. Is there some way we can help to kick this thing off?
Getting ready for LD46? Pluralsight is opening up their entire course catalog. Skill up for free for the rest of April:
Intro Unity Game Development
Free April
A story: At some point I was talking and I mentioned this thing: a game jam, so loudly that at least two other people heard me. We might have been having lunch.
So was envisioned, the dream team:
The venerated @awelotta, my brother. He didn't really want to participate in a game jam, I think. He has never fully composed a song, much less a jingle. Didgeridoos out for our composer, awelotta.
@bean, my other brother has never made a game. He probably heard me when I mentioned a game jam over... lunch or something? He's played a lot of Team Fortress 2 prior though. Hats off to our programmer, bean.
Also I started learning Unity 3 weeks before the jam. Also I never finish anything. @save-our-sunken-ship
Can we coalesce into a designing, prototyping and compiling loogie in time? No worries, we already did. We even had lunch.
Bonus! Ye ol' @lessen, who is not my brother. He will be joining us as a Unity game dev since I guess a few days ago.
[1-46 2. ...]
For ludum dare 46 I'm creating a team of about 20 people. The team has created a game recently in one week for the weekly game jam. Sadly we didn't make it, because we didn't know the weekly game jam wasn't one week long as the name suggest. You can join us for ludum dare, where we will create a game in 72 hours. We have standards and everyone who want's to join has to pass interview.
I wanted something calm and minimalistic so I created this.
Best quality version
Free to use and download
Hey we've got a lot of mature programmers and some content creators, we desperately need artists, but feel free to join with any background. https://discord.gg/a6EJTd
(Zoom in)
Hey everyone! I'm in for my 8th Ludum Dare! I'd love to partner with an artist this time and do the jam. If you're interested let me know! I have ~7 years professional experience as a programmer and my best LD games got 27th and 31st overall :smile: Hoping to partner with someone who has some experience as well.
Good luck to everyone participating! I can't wait to play all your games!
Will there be theme voting this year? I couldn't find a scheduled date for it. If so, would anyone mind informing me when?
Is it just me or hasn't theme slaughter and theme voting pretty much started by now with the last Ludum Dares? :D
Maybe we'll get different paced system this year, like theme slaughter starting very soon and then the last 4 days would be all the theme voting days. We'll see :)
The final version of my LD45 game "A Brand New World" has been completed and is now available on Itch. It has undergone major changes from the Ludum Dare version that was originally released for the Ludum Dare 45 Compo.
This new version features enhanced gameplay, upgraded graphics and new features. New disaster cards allow you to change the terrain tiles, and the new goals system give you specific tasks to complete for some extra bonus points.
The local and online highscores allow you to see your best score for each map size, as well as compare your top score to that of other players around the world.
Please give it a try and let me know what you think.
The game is released as a free game - although if you wish to donate it is greatly appreciated.
Also...
Getting ready for LD46! It's gonna be fun!
The Blue Girl is game that me and my team make for Ludum Dare 45. Then we make a demake called The Grey Girl. It is simpler, lesser colorful, it has lesser areas to go and lesser variety (небольшое разнообразие). You see here:
The features are:
You play the game here: The Grey Girl
P.S. You mighter also like another spinoff of The Blue Girl, No Holds Barred. It it is more complicated and frustrating, a sereal game that will take you mind into four-color greyness :doughnut:.
According to the rules, the theme voting should start 2 weeks before the event starts, so why did it not started yet?
This is a game that I've been working on its not out yet, but a wishlist and a checkout would be nice
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1111190/Short_Fuse/
Thanks
In December 2018, I joined my first Ludum Dare - LD43 - with a game called Can't save them all. About a year later, I started reworking the game to eventually make a casual mobile game. It's not there yet and might never be because I'm working on bigger projects now. But yesterday I decided to released what I had in the wild. I present you Pirasea.
Play it here: https://lilou-cormic.itch.io/pirasea
Golly, it's that time of year again!
I'm definitely going to do my best to take part this time around, hopefully I'll be able to finish my little SDL boilerplate engine on time, as I want to try my hand at c++ gamedev.
Anyway, as usual, I've prepared a couple of wallpapers for the upcoming trial.
I've decided to keep the Floating Islands theme from last year's wallpapers, however I'm going for somewhat of a more realistic style this time around. I hope you like the aesthetic. If so, feel free to download whichever one you like best!
Cheers, and a wonderful Ludum Dare to you all!
-ArBe
This is gonna be my first game jam, so wish me luck!
A few pictures I've gathered that get me in the world building mindset - if you end up hating the ld theme, twist it into something that gets you excited! - best of luck everyone, have fun, and stay safe!
This is exciting :) 
Let me know if you want different colors or resolutions.
Anyone else thinking of using it? I've never used it before, any good resources I could check out?
Hello there, we are looking for an artist (preference 2d), if you are interested dm me or add me on discord snowirbis#8012
We are an experienced team, we worked on several games before, and participated to two game jams, though it is our first ludum dare.
This game jam was made with an australian artist
And this one was our first game jam !
Here's my theme suggestions
Good luck everyone!
Over the last 2 or 3 years, I've taken part in multiple LD Jams, but I've always failed to finish the game to a point where I feel ok submitting it. This go around I'm hoping to stop that bad habit and actually get something turned in. If anyone has had a problem like this and found something that helped them out and are willing to share, please do! :smiley:
Oh, and here are my suggestions
(It's supposed to say My suggestions, and it's supposed to be a link but it doesn't work sometimes in preview so here's a plain link to the image just in case: https://static.jam.vg/raw/43a/c/z/2a26c.png)
I've already seen few pretty interesting theme suggestions. Here are my ideas. What do you think guys?
Hi there, Ludum Dare Mates! LD 46 Event is approaching and I'm just curious, how do you guys build GUIs (or should I call it a HUD? Is there some key difference?) in your game jam submissions? Do you have your own polished pipeline of producing GUIs addressing all player's needs? Maybe you mastered some mature tricks and practices, some principles and life hacks you use.
Below are some examples of various HUDs and GUIs:
I'm interested in this topic as I'd like to make a game to be clear and user-friendly to player (to the detriment of innovation and originality, perhaps I admit). But I do not have any rich experience, I'm more a tech guy, a coder rather than a game designer or UI/UX designer. So, I'd appreciate any tips or links to the guides and papers related to building GUIs which you found very useful and cool in the context of game development.
Hello humans.
When is the theme slaughter round? Doesn't it start 14 days before ludum dare?
Thanks!
It has been 6 months since I last game deved somthing and the last time I did it was, of course, on the LD45. I've been preparing the past week just wathcing, reading and trying to remeber all the things about programming in Unity. But this made me think, even thou it has been 6 months which shouldn't matter much, why did I have to go all trough this basic stuff again? And whenever I code something, I find myself constantly looking into Unity's manual or youtube ( Brackeys ;) ). Does this prove that I'm still not expirienced enough? When you have an idea on how some part of the game mechanic works, do you guys just type it in instantly from your head? Or maybe a better question would be how often do you find yourself looking for help on the internet?
this is always the most exciting part of the year fo rme, it allows me to make some truly abhorent art and pass it off. jokes aside im in for the 12 time i beleive it's something dumb like that.
After a long break, I'll participate in the Compo again. These are the best hard working times of the year. I plan to refresh my OpenGL knowledge, I think I'll use LibGDX... It would be cool to write some nice shaders! :D
Do you have any suggestions girls / guys for a program to create music? I always struggle with music and sound effects.
Cheers!
Say something
Hey, I thought I couldn't take part because of exams but (fortunately) they are cancelled because of covid-19 (unfortunately). So I'm in!
Made a computer model to practice my blender skills a bit :)
Also here are my suggestions!
Good luck everyone and happy jamming!
I hope they're inspiring enough!
Really looking forward to the next LD. Its gonna be awesome! I usually love abstract and open to interpretation themes so I am going with
Anybody without a team? We are considering partnering up with someone for the coding part, as usually its where we fall short.
Well, well, well if it isn't the time we do something more than sitting in front of computer and doing nothing. Made a Spotify music for my 72 hours for sleepless nights :P
Been going through some things, but programming always makes me feel better. I want to get in to game dev, and this is the best way I can think of to get experience. I use Unity and know C#, both on beginner levels. I plan on doing the Jam, and my suggestions are:
I like themes that work just as well for story inspiration as they do for mechanics. Here are my suggestions for this jam:
I hope this time would be fun like last LD jams. Here is my random thoughs on theme suggesitions what you think?
I'm in! just saying now not to forget to do it later!
Good luck everyone, we might need it...
I'm going to join ldjam this time!
Hey guys, so i'm new to this Ludum Dare and this is gonna be my first jam, whoo. Just take it easy on me during the voting for the games:). At least i can focus on my game now, cus exams aree cancelled. today was supposed to be my checkpoint examinations. pheew
Good luck everyone
It seems that the slaughter should have already started... ??
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
This is the first game jam I'm gonna partake in, good luck to everyone!
My friend and I can't find button invite to team.
Can't wait for next LD, it will be our 5th jam. I was just lately looking back into our last entry and have released an Update for our last LD45 game "The Island". It was mainly based on the comments we got, and I think it went pretty well, but it is on the others to judge.
Stay safe people and see you soon!
Here is the link to our game (updated) : https://jin9310.itch.io/theisland
And here is the link with changes done in the update : https://jin9310.itch.io/theisland/devlog/135376/the-island-first-post-ld-update
Let's wreck these themes!
Edit:
Thanks for themes like that
![frb6J1g[1].png](http:///raw/a5b/d1/z/2a29a.png)
They are very creative
And inspirational
And stuff
Yeah...
I can't wait for my 3rd Ludum Dare! Only 11 days left to go!
I'll be making a game in Godot with @MrPiedPiper and hopefully contributing to the programming a bit more this time. (last time I only did art)
Here are my theme suggestions:
I'm downvoting every theme that has to do with viruses or isolation. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life. 😀
First jam, wish me luck!
I'm going to bet most of us here aren't really remotely qualified to comment on COVID 19, it's the type of thing best left to experts as to not spread misinformation. What's more, Ludum Dare is meant to be fun, an escape perhaps, people don't need a constant reminder of whats going on, there's enough already.
"But it's to spread awareness" I know someone out there will say. No it's not. Everyone is more than well enough aware of the issue and again, there's not much most of us can say that will really add anything to the situation, stick to your expertise.
I think it is really unoriginal and leads to many similar games. LD is the time to forget about all that for a bit and just have fun creating games.
I love themes like: - Gardening - Reflection - Towers
They are single words, I like them because they give you freedom to be creative and create so many games from them. For theme "gardening" for example, you could make a tower defense game with gardening mechanics, mini farming simulator or a platformer where different platforms grow from the plants. The point is that it gives you creative freedom.
But themes like: - "Not as it seems" - "find the exit"
Are immensely vague and it takes time to even decipher how to make a game idea from it that follows the theme. I hate those kind of themes. Plus I hate themes that are of the format: "Running out of __"
Anyways, just sharing couple of opinions.
This'll be my sixth Ludum Dare. I've been meaning to do some development work this year but I've been low on creative energy, so hopefully this will be the spark I need.
My main goal this time round is to try and push my creative boundaries, and develop something in a genre I don't usually work in, or with a system I've never programmed before. My previous two entries were pretty similar, and I don't want to get stuck in a rut. I'll still try and create something story-driven, but I'm not going to commit to it this time round.
As always, though, I'll be developing my entry in either PICO-8 or TIC-80, and tucked away somewhere within will be a reference to my previous entry (namely, Inspiration.).
I got both "water", "virus" and "herding" twice :punch:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
and Virus a third time :bellhop:
It's the first time I participate to a game jam where the theme is proposed by participants, and 95% of them are just bad. There is a lot of themes that were already used in previous LDJam, pandemic related themes (got Quarantine more than a dozen of times), time, gravity, and space everywhere. Some classic light and dark, death mechanics theme Way too much Reverse something, negative something, that's just not original anymore But the themes I hate the most are the one that limit your inputs (only one button, indirect control), your mechanics (can't move, can't touch the ground, limited resources), the world art (everything is cube, no color), the genre (VR, fps, rts) or the levels (only one level)
A good game jam should have an inspiring theme, for example, Butterfly effect, Keeping a promise, seasons, Hell, red fox, moon, four elements. This way everyone can choose their own genre, you can tell the story you want, and more importantly, you can have the mechanics you want. The theme is just a way to unify your game, it should not prevent you from doing a good game that you like.
No. Just no. The current events are already taking a huge toll on people lifes, some more, some less. And while many of us (probably most of us) are restrained due to lockdown all over the world, why dont we make games that set us free from this reality? I always saw games as a an escape and i guess we never needed them so much.
Wow, somebody played too much of Portal as the theme "Still Alive"
I think we need to limit everyone to ONE theme from now on. Going through 6000+ themes is near impossible. There are many that are duplicates and should have been filtered out already.
I'm new here. How many themes can add 1 person?
Most of the flagged themes are COVID related (stay at home, isolation, virus, etc.) because I don't want to have such a theme which were at many jams recently.
I mean, what else is there to do during a "Stay At Home" order except do a Game Jam! :smile:
Going to start the Slaughter soon... and I am on the "no Covid theme" side. I need a break from reality.
I swear, I keep seeing the same themes over and over. Some that I wouldn't even expect to be duplicated--I'm pretty sure I've seen "Finish with nothing" like four times by now... (and I'm less than a sixth of the way through)
Edit: And now I've seen something like "Venture out, but come back for dinner" twice... what..?
There are so many themes that are simply "virus"! I found two "Mushrooms and ducks do it again" and a bunch of other themes that were repeated! This is getting annoying! Maybe if there was some kind of filter for the themes than life would be a lot easier in the slaughter round...
Instead of complaining about duplicate themes, make a pull request or commit an issue on github. LD is open source after all.
If you're not figuring out any theme suggestion, do not give any instead of writing "this is my last suggestion" and such...
Looking forward to a great jam, good luck!
So ive been doing the theme slaughter round for about a hour now and ive noticed somethign awfully strange. It's a plethra of themes that have to revolve around Suicide or Deppresion in one way or another and i find it quite concerning that theres a good number of theese themes, ive slaughtered around 100 by now.
On the other hand i have been Flagging all the themes relating to the Corona Virus. And this is also the first jam ive had more flagged themes than kept ones. 
This is how much i have done so far.
It really annoys me when it's obvious a person is trying to joke around.
Are you kidding me?
I get that many people are drawing theme inspiration from their new routines during this pandemic, but games for many people are a way to forget all the bad things that are going on in the world. I've seen far too many themes in the slaughter which are some variation of 'virus' or 'indoors'. Come on people, do you really want to be spending two days of lovingly crafting a fantasy world, being constantly reminded that a virus has you locked indoors??
Who writes all these themes?
I mean seriously, who writes all these themes? At least this one just made me crack up. These ones are better than all the toilet paper/coronavirus themes!
Well, I have now gone through a little less than half of all the themes, and it's not looking good...
My current kept : slaughtered themes is currently 1:88. And after seeing thousands of themes, I now have a set of filters which I check every theme against to see if I should spare it or slaughter it.
This filter basically weeds out all the themes created to troll the slaughterers(does that count as a word?). It eliminates things like "FlOaTiNg IsLaNdS", "nuzloke"(whatever that is), and "Mushrooms and ducks do it again". This one is pretty simple and obvious.
This filter can be broken up into 3 smaller filters:
One of the intresting things when playing other submissions is seeing how the same theme is interpreted diffrently. I don't want to play 20 platformers or 20 puzzle games. One good rule of thumb I heard is this: "Can you think of a platformer, a puzzle game, an FPS and a text adventure that fit this theme?".
Example of a bad theme: If you jump you die
Some "Styles" of games are: Sci-fi, Midieval, etc. A theme like "Weird Sci-fi" limits the possible styles, and reduces overall game diversity.
Realistically, there are 2 types of games*; 2D and 3D. Which game you make is mostly a matter of personal preference. Therefore, the theme shouldn't force LD participants to use one or the other.
The official purpose of the theme is to help people overcome the "Blank Page" challenge. Themes that are too vague undermine this purpose, which is why "You start with nothing" fall flat.
After these filters, the themes you keep or kill is a matter of preference and judgement. A good example of this are the many COVID-19 themes. Most people don't like these themes and automatically downvote them.
I hope this guide will help you think of better themes and help you in your slaughtering :D
Cool! Theme slaughter is finally here! I can't wait to... h-H-h-H-O-L-Y COW!
6000+ themes!?!
I don't think the themes are what's getting slaughtered this go round...
Insert Brain Tears
Hello everyone,
I've been reading about this duplicates issue so I tried to add my grain of sand to the problem. I ran some deduping of the full themes list and it seems that out of 6327 theme suggestions, only 927 are exact duplicates, which is below 15%.
The thing is removing duplicates is not an easy task, because you have to find: + a) Exact matches + b) Semi-Exact matches: themes that are the same one but misspelled or with a special symbol like a "." at the end + c) Themes that are extremely similar and can be clustered together
C is not as simple as removing exact matches. I think, since LD is Open Source, we can do something about it.
So, if we are going to add something for future jams, we should probably think about preprocessing the themes list.
IMO Preprocessing should:
This way no theme is removed and all similar ideas can be approved or denied all at once.
It's just an opinion, let me know what you think
Cheers!
Edit: If anyone wants the full list as an spreadsheet here it is
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xfigRLvo8Y97TI9oyteUyGiFoRAC7pQ88MLFftme44U/edit?usp=sharing
As always, people are complaining about the themes that have been suggested, and we'll most likely see the tried & true tradition of complaining about the final theme when it's picked in ~10 days.
( p.s. we all hate the theme, even if it's your theme, that's the rules, no need to rant about it ;^) )
111
Like for real, why are there so many COVID-19 related themes. Either that or themes that make no sense.
it looks like people are gettin' suicidal this year.
Those who have added themes such as "death is only solution"/"life is meaningless"/"you are alone" should rather take part psychological therapy than in the Ludum Dare.
My finger (and soul) hurts from slaughtering all of those themes.
Duck for attention
I've been seeing so many death related themes! Stuff like "die to win", "decrease in population", "death is the only way", "mass nuclear destruction", and many other dark themes. There are a lot if other possible themes that would be more interesting and fun. What do you guys think?
I was predicting just over 5k and somehow I still undershot it.
Time to put the boots on and wade through the theme landfill once again...
Help when i click publish it doesnt publish and it undoes all my typing and resets so i cant post anything
Would you rather have the theme "COVID-19" or "Floating islands"? :fire: :fire_engine:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
(Definetely NOT my artwork)
I spent an hour just on slaughtering 1000 themes. And by the end of it, I got so burnt out, that I started to don't care.
I just clicked by instinct, instead of thinking about them for a few seconds. Because even if something sounds bad, it could be a really productive theme....
By the end, If it sounded bad, I downvoted, if it didn't, I upvoted. There should be more thought behind voting.
My 3 suggestions:
Automatic filtering for duplications. If a suggestion is already in, delete it, or don't even let the user suggest it in the first place. (not case sensitive)
Manual filtering for duplications. If a suggestion is 80% the same as one another, it should be flagged, and will be needed to be approved by some authority.
People should think before typing. If you think that someone may have already entered this suggestion, then DON'T SUGGEST IT. (I'm pointing at you, "Quarantine", "Virus", "Isolation" and "Covid" guys.)
Until something is changed, I won't participate in the theme slaughter, because my vote most likely won't make a difference.
1 vote in 2000+ doesn't really worth 6 hours of my life.
(The theme would suck anyway, as the old saying goes :smile: )
Cheers!
