My sincerest apologies for my the delay getting Ludum Dare 59 started! The TL;DR is that I've been tirelessly attempting (and failing) to find work this past year, and as you might imagine that takes a toll. I'll come back to that in a moment, but before that lets get to what you're here for.
Theme Suggestions are live
For a few more hours we'll be accepting theme suggestions, before beginning the Theme Slaughter.
Share your ideas here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/theme
Mike and the jobs
For context, I wrote a different "nearly 20k character post" about my struggles to find work, but chose not to share it. I wont lie that things have been hard, but it was far too long and felt far too cynical in parts. Writing it also brought up some questions I needed more time to explore. So again, my apologies it took so long!
My past year of job hunting has been humbling. I've applied and been through ringer of many-stage interviews with tech royalty, from some of the biggest names in social media, Linux, web browsers and browser tech, to hardware and graphics companies, games, gaming middleware, plus some other oddities. As long as the job didn't require me to move to Toronto (Toronto specifically :fire:, the rest of Ontario is fine), if I had something to offer and their primary business does no harm (i.e. nothing military, gambling, or surveillance) then I applied for it.
Again, the experience has been humbling. Frustrating and angering at times? For sure! Entire 4-6 stage applications I was convinced I nailed but didn't get. Applications where I felt my interviewer sabotaged my chance (:cryingcatface:), or poorly designed tests where "knowing too much" was a detriment, and of course situations where I simply misjudged or misprepared for a stage. Ya, I definitely make mistakes. A recent situation that really left a sting was a job I was sent a test for, did it, send it back, and was left ghosted for weeks. After prodding them, I was essentially told they sent me the test by mistake. :face_palm:
The past month (March) was one of my busiest, with 6 companies simultaneously interviewing and testing me. My optimism was through the roof, so much so that I was actually afraid I'd have to choose, that I'd be the one stringing a company along in case I got the job I wanted. WELP!!... This wasn't the first time I've been so wrong. 3 of those were no's, 2 ghosted me, but I am still actively interviewing for one of those 6 jobs. :sweat:
Though I am feeling confident, the past year has made me reluctant to believe it's ever "in the bag". I have one more "test" with them later in the week. Fingers crossed there are no surprises, but to their credit they have done a great job giving me enough information on what to expect. Their hiring manager surprised me, being someone who was familiar with and had respect for the tenacity of game devs. I can't (yet) say they're a good home for ex-gamedevs, but hey it's nice to feel seen. :blush:
I have a lot more I could say about my ups and downs, but I think I've made my point: Getting an "actual senior" Senior Developer job in today's job market is hard (regardless of the swill the AI bros are spouting).
Why don't you love us?
I agree the lack of updates and my slowness getting this event started sucks. To me the minimum Ludum Dare countdown should be 3 weeks: a week of suggestions, a week of slaughter, a week of theme voting, then event. I was fully aware of the expectations of me, but as mentioned above I did just go through a rough bunch of rejections, and them landing as they did hit me harder than expected.
Low key I've also been terrified.
I got a high profile job rejection on Xmas eve-eve of last year. December 31st was basically when I ran out of money, savings, retirement savings, and credit. My wife also needed time off work to recovery from surgery, so I've been scrounging by on the whatever financial scraps I could muster up, all to buy time to send out the next batch of resumes and wade through every tech companies drawn-out interview processes.
Tangentially, I want to quickly shout-out to Duck Duck Go for actually paying you to "do tests". They were one of my first "wait, why did you say no?" rejections from 2 years ago. It wasn't a lot (maybe a half days pay), but still greatly appreciated after discovered how demanding some companies hiring processes are. :dizzy_face:
Back on topic, I'm so greatly appreciative of everyone whose been generously supporting me over the years. I'd legit be homeless right now if it wasn't for all of you. :heart: Also a big thank-you to the friend who sent cash to buy parts to fix my laptop, and the "Tim" who sent the ~$1000 out of the blue. For the sake of personal privacy I hadn't told anyone about my wife's surgery or recovery, but you sir saved my ass. :heart:
Am I in better financial shape now? No, but my wife is back at work so the stranglehold has loosened. If the previously mentioned job doesn't work out, I do have a short graphic design gig a friend asked me to do "when I have time". That should cover car insurance for the year, and get the creditors to leave me alone. But like I said, scrounging by.
So please understand, my lack of commitment to Ludum Dare isn't because I don't love you, it's because I can't "do it well" while I'm afraid of losing my home.
Winding things down?
No I'm not blind to the comments bellyaching how "meh" events have been and everyone who thinks they could do better job than me. I mean it's hard to beat our April 2020 numbers, a time when EVERYONE was stuck indoors. I consider myself a connoisseur of the various comical ways unappreciated open source developers have been "sticking it" to entitled users. My spiteful gremlin and I do discuss funny ways of directing the blame at entitled folk :relieved:. But, as funny as that would be, that's not in the spirit of what we do here.
I'm not sure many people have noticed, but for many years I've been referring to myself as the co-founder and caretaker of Ludum Dare. Not a CEO, not a deity, not even the "lead developer", but its caretaker. At this point I'M ITS FREAKING MOM! Despite every ambition of mine to see Ludum Dare become something bigger and better than ever, my job #1 has always been ensuring that Ludum Dare continued. Even right now, fraught in financial ruin, I'm still here ensuring it persists.
The thing about Ludum Dare is even I don't want it to end. In a way it doesn't have to, but in another I think it does.
But not today.
3 MORE YEARS OF LUDUM DARE!! (AKA 6 more events)
We've already blown past event number 48, and the next nearest number that means something to me is 64.
So mark your calendars:
Ludum Dare 64 in October 2028 will be the last scheduled Ludum Dare event!
Better yet, mark every April and October between now and then. As my schedule opens up, I'll see about rigging up an .ical and other ways to stay informed.
But what about the April thing?
Take note that I've chosen my words carefully: scheduled. Knowing myself, it's likely the big six-four will become such a fun memorable event for me, that I'm gonna want one more. Maybe two? :wink:
Those of us that have been around since the beginning know that April is Ludum Dare month. It's the one thing I will take full responsibility for: convincing everyone involved that if it's April, we need to run a Ludum Dare.
So with that, I do intend to run an encore event in April of 2029. That will be the end-end though. Do note this isn't a "scheduled" Ludum Dare event, even though I am telling you it's going to happen.
October 2028 will be Ludum Dare's goodbye celebration event.
After that, Ludum Dare will return "as needed".
As mentioned, I'm personally obligated to end my Ludum Dare streak in April... I need this! :wink:
But yes, this will be the "end-end" of Ludum Dare, at least until another is needed.
What need means is dealers choice (probably me), but say if something the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic happens again, our successors end their events, or who knows, maybe we get an itch (50 years of Ludum Dare party in 2052?). Spontaneity is our thing. You shouldn't assume one is coming until it is, but I can be peer pressured. I should continue existing online in some form. :wink:
Why not "pass the torch" or "let someone else run it"?
There are way too many reasons to list. I will get into some of them, but I think this should be your takeaway.
I "DARE YOU" to make YOUR better LUDUM DARE in 3 years!
Lets be honest, the software and ways we run events are dated and kinda suck. Our legacy of "duct tape and cardboard" lives on even today, and I've done my job if you haven't noticed. :wink:
What makes Ludum Dare awesome is you! Not my PHP and JavaScript glue that keeps things going. It's you.
And besides, who could I actually pass the event on to anyway?
A vague notion of "the community" isn't a leader. Projects need a leader to ... well... lead.
I did have one person in mind: Long time game jam cheerleader Christer "McFunkyPants" Kailtila was on the top of my short list, but after he shut down One Game a Month after 6 years, it became more clear we were in uncharted territory. It's basically me, Linus Torvalds, and a bunch of old-ass-CEO's that are still around running projects decades after creating them.
I've done my best to keep up with the folks involved in the community, but past a certain point you just can't. I want to and I do try, but there's still just one me. :slight_frown:
Me too, as much as I'd love to "build a new Ludum Dare" myself, the fairest thing I can do is tell you "YES, IT IS ENDING", and give you YEARS to do something about it.
I want this community to persist, all the friends made along the way to stay friends and stay connected in some way.
I also want you to learn from Ludum Dare.
What I don't want to see is someone just "copy" or "recreate" what we have here. I want you to make something better. I'm even giving you 3 years to watch what we do, how we do it, where we fail, where we succeed, everything! Study us, heck turn us into your doctorate thesis, whatever. I will do my best over these next few years to share my knowledge and experience.
I want the spirit of this community to continue. I want whatever comes next to outlast us, to beat my record, to be a better and more welcoming event than we ever could make ourselves.
Can I call it Ludum Dare?
Please don't.
The Ludum Dare you know today was started by group on internet friends in 2002. The event took its name from the forum that hosted the first event(s), and later grew into something bigger.
There a notion that running Ludum Dare was some baton passed on like some crown, where in reality Ludum Dare actually died. It died multiple times. But the friends who started and fell in love with it, and we eventually "fixed" the dying bug.
Something like 99.999% of you reading this weren't there when we started. So few of us were even around when it died for the 1st, 2nd, or 5th time. Have you even met Geoff?
I don't mean this arrogantly but so few of you know Geoff's Ludum Dare, Hamumu's Ludum Dare, or Richard's Ludum Dare. You know the Ludum Dare I built, or the one Phil and I built. And just because its ending, doesn't mean its done or its over.
I want our legacy go on, but this name (this era) should end.
Again I don't think its enough to just copy us or wear our name-tag. I want you to be better, and I'm even going to show you what makes us good and bad, for 3 more years. I want this community, my community, to have a better home. I want our ending to be bittersweet.
I need you to make us obsolete.
I never say it enough, but the queer, trans, and neurodivergent communities have changed my life. Supporting them isn't a simple editable pronoun field, or disregarding the whole "age gating" debacle, but something much more. Its a fundamental commitment to creating a safe space, and putting the time to actually understand what safe is. I did my best, but I still never felt I did a good enough job at it. Care for them! Stand up for them! Be there for them. :two_hearts:
Don't let them down. Don't let me down.
When I talked earlier about there being a "need" for Ludum Dare, this is what I was alluding to. If my challenge goes unfulfilled, or something worse, as Ludum Dare's caretaker I will do everything I can to keep the lights on, be a landmark for any of you, to find a place online to call home.
We also might decide to run throwback events on fun future years, but no promises! :wink:
April
Keeping in touch after 2028 will be tough, but I will make you this one promise: April.
Exactly what happens to us or with us is up in the air. If we run an event though, it'll be in April. If we do finally stop running events for good, it would be poetic to see Ludum Dare become a forum again, a place for us old timers to catch up or share where gaming or the the game jam community has gone. And if that happens, there is a time of year I'd encourage everyone to stop by and say hello: April.
What about my data?
Roughing out the edges for our final events, and making everyone's posts and game data more easily exportable are my goals over the next few years. I also have a disgusting backlog of GPDR requests to deal with, but that's a separate thing.
We have an API that folks can scrape/have scraped to access anything public, but I'd strongly discourage folks from blanket doing this. I can't stop you, but the reason I haven't just exposed more or made JSON dumps available are because of the GPDR. We collect almost no identifiable information about people, aside from your username, email, and IP (we needed during our failed attempts at stopping spammers). Everything else was volunteered, and can be edited just by logging in, finding it, and using the little EDIT pencil icon on the data you want to change. Making many changes isn't as fast as me running queries, but you do have actions if I'm unavailable.
But ultimately ya, getting all of this squared-up sensibly as we wind down is my goal.
Wrapping up
This post gets heavy, so I'm grateful if you got through it. Even since Ludum Dare achieved its impossible goals of "Ludum Dare 48" and running it for 20 years, I've pondered what the next big push would be. When the pandemic forced us all indoors, that was a reminder that anything could happen, BUT even this community held together with duct tape and cardboard can make a difference. I'm so very proud of what we accomplished then, and we're not done yet!
Today I am still fighting to find me a job, something to get the burden of support off of all you still supporting me. I will continue to be grateful to all of you, whether you threw cash at me or not. Being your caretaker for all these years has been my pleasure and honour. I may have taken things too far (:sweat_smile:), in more ways than one, but this will forever be one of the most important things I've been a part of.
But again, we're not done. I shouldn't say "we're just getting started", but if I have my way, we will be going out with a bang (a good bang).
Thank you for everything. Now lets Ludum those Dares!
- Mike
🍀💅🏼✨🐸
. 
