Hey! I'm that person who previously posted a controversial rant about LD themes, then revisited it with a bit less salt. Let's talk about theme suggestions.
Blank page syndrome is a thing. I'm bad at conjuring game ideas out of thin air, so I look to jam themes for inspiration. I love it when a phrase, or even a single word, can spawn correlations, images, or even entire visions, which, together with my team, we can then distil into a game concept.
What I look for
Themes providing limitations, be it mechanical or semantic, can sometimes get us there, particularly if they happen to line up with a genre we want to explore, but there is only so much they can do before we arrive at another blank page: where is the game set, and what is the player trying to do?
There's something to be said for mysterious prompts that take everyone on a different journey through their memories and dreams, which I think is a pool of inspiration far greater than the last 3 games we've played and the latest genre stuck in our heads. When opening someone else's game, you never quite know where it's going to take you, but the sense of connection is still there, because you were both in the same place when the jam started.
From a purely practical point of view, I prefer themes that don't go into too much detail. For example, "Inevitable" is better than "Delay the inevitable". Similarly, if a theme suggestion sounds like it's already a game idea, it's probably not great. Don't write someone else's GDD for them ;) And finally, it's good to keep the accessibility aspect in mind. There are certain theme ideas that might be great, enjoyable challenges, but which not everyone will be able to participate in, either due to physical or hardware limitations.
What makes a good theme for you?
All of the above is just my perspective. I would love you, dear Reader, to think about what it is that you look for in a good jam theme, and apply that throughout the suggestion, slaughter and voting process this LD. What does a theme help you with? How does it fit into your creative process? And what inspiration does your theme suggestion bring? :sparkles:
Bonus
Watch me lose my mind while debugging at another recent game jam. Hope it's entertaining :D