Hey! This will be my 6th Ludum Dare back-to-back, and I talk about jam themes sometimes :D

LD50 was a huge accomplishment and celebration for everyone who took part, everyone who has ever taken part in LD, and everyone who has made these events possible. :tada: I think it's super important for us, creative individuals, to look for innovation at every step of our journey, and what better opportunity to focus on it than the opening of a new chapter in Ludum Dare history?

Personally, I think one of the things that can make a great game jam is a great theme. So why not take this opportunity to think about what you would really love to see everyone - thousands of people! - have a go at?

I've previously written and meandered about what makes a good theme, but it can be distilled to this:

it needs to be open-ended enough so that everyone can find their own interpretation, but grounded enough so that all the games have something in common.

Notice how the semantic depth of a word or phrase can help it be both grounded and open to interpretation.

The biggest tangible benefit of a good jam theme is that we get to see games of almost every kind imaginable. It doesn't dictate where your game should take place; whether it should feature minor violence, total mayhem, or no violence at all; what the objective should be; what vibe it needs; whether you play as a hero on the ground, a mastermind in the sky, or, indeed, the environment itself. These things have so much to do with individual style, preference and ability!

For LD51, I've looked back at my previous theme suggestions, and took two different ideas. The first one is meant to be a reference (cookies if you know where it's from!) and a starting point to think about gameplay or story; the second is meant to bring up everyone's individual concept of what's "at the entrance", "threshold" or "beginning", "in between" things, times or places, and let that spark the creativity.

Just like last time, let's make the themes interesting, and LD51 an amazing event! :sparkles: