Hello everyone !

For I first Ludum Dare, I tried my best and I really enjoyed it (who does not dream about a w.e of work and short sleep ?) but it raised so many questions.
If a minimalist painting is only lines of color, maybe shapes, what is a minimalist video game ?

Story ? : when you play you are telling yourself your own story, no matter what.
Risk/Reward ? CharacterProgression ? : you can "play" without any of that.
Liberty of interactions ? : let's be honest, there is no true liberty in games, there is just more or less possibilities allowed by designers and code

So what is the base of playing video games ?

Level designs are made with rythm in mind, Game Design documents are full of curves and statistics, Graphics try to make you feel you are doing "awesome things" while you are pushing buttons on a little plastic box > Playing a video game is following arbitrary rules, communicating with a machine via buttons that you press in a time and manner that Designers decided, in order to get the correct reward, the one that please you.

I think is hard to bring a perfect answer to this question, and in 48h I only came with a prototype.
However I really hope you will enjoy my linear arcade FPS, or my car race simulation, or whatever you want it to be :), after all it is a minimalist game > it is made for you to feel like it could be any game, it is only a true core :
- Push the right button
- Push it at the right time
- Get the reward
- Youhou !
- Do it again

And, above all, do not take any of that really seriously :), it is late here and I need to sleep.

Congrats everyone ! I'm sure all of you did a great job, and I'm restless to see that tomorrow .
And Good luck for those who have not finished yet.