Its good to see that it once again time for ludum dare. For any early people looking for a team feel free to message me. I am a programmer and this will be my 6th ludum dare now. Hope you all have a great day.

Last time, my theme suggestion "Deeper and deeper" was chosen. Although this might not happen again for one of my suggestions, here are they for LD49:

This will be my 12th or so LD dare - and I'm here to say, I'm in! Yay!

And I guess a little more ...

I love participating in the LD events - for me, it is a chance to revisit my 'engine' in its entirety and make sure it's still working. It also offers me a time-windowed opportunity to try something new (mainly a mechanic or technical feature of the engine) - whether it works or not, it'll only cost me a weekend. The community stuff is also great, reading through the progress reports and tool reviews etc really gets me psyched-up.

However, inevitably, we end up at the theme selection, which by this point to me is just a massive slog. There is just no originality in it, nor benefit to it, and I wonder if we could do things better? For me, it's not only the sheer number of entries to be filtered, and slaughtered and then voted on (although is getting worse each year) - but it is the lack of relevancy and impersonal-ness of the themes. And how can a single theme speak to the 1000s of participants and make everyone happy?

It seems like 60% of the themes are re-hashes or previous themes, 30% are themes that I don't like or speak to some aspect of game-development that I'm not interested in, and then there are maybe the 10% of themes that I do like, but which may not make the slaughter round, let alone the finals. I guess it comes down to I don't enjoy the slaughter rounds any more.

I'd also be willing to bet, that there aren't any newly 'unique' themes this year that weren't also added last year - we now likely just have more variations of the phrase to slaughter.

So here's my idea, as we have two LD events per year, I feel like just having static (non-changing) main themes on the events and just attached some sub-theme for direction would be a good idea.

For example, let the April-event be 'a celebration of the video games industry' - where we use some current or past event in the industry to choose a sub-theme. Meanwhile, the October event could be 'a celebration of the video gamers' where we get a chance to make some personal project with something more ... personal.

These two events would be used to help guide the selection of a theme in a more worthwhile way.

Here are some examples:

April (LD Industry Event): + C64 is 40 years old this year - (re)make a C64 classic + a new take on the hardest video game you ever played + A tribute to your favourite franchise (or company/genre/system/etc.) + reimagine an EA classic

October (LD Players Event): + combine 2 aspects of your favourite childhood games into one + minimalist re-make of a disappointing video game purchase + a game based in/on your old house/neighbourhood + remake a game you used to play outside + a game your sibling/best friend would enjoy

None of these themes are specific to any genre or mechanical aspect of a video game. They are massively open-ended yet should invoke very specific ideas in each of us. Then I don't have to sit through 4000 entries of 'snowman' and 'you only get one'

As the title suggest this would be my first ever Ludum Dare I'll ever participated and to say that I'm excited or nervous is a massive understatement also these are my suggestion for this year Ludum Dare 49.

I'm newer to LD this will be my 3rd and I'm so excited for it! It's always great to try new techniques and put myself to the test with this game jam. I'm also hoping to join a team or work with others this year so if that interests you dm me on Discord TheMentalSheep#6257. I'm a programmer and a self described "decent" pixel artist.

Engines: Primarily Unity but I'm learning Unreal. Languages: C#, C++, and Java primarily. Art: photoshop and Aseprite.

This will be my 2nd time participating and last time I didn't really bother with music/SFX as I hadn't played around with any tools beforehand and didn't have time to learn.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Hi, I'm BigManCloudy, the owner of Silent Earth Games. This is gonna be my first game jam and I'm hyped!

I'm new to Ludum Dare so just wanted to say hi!

Well well well... I know I am a composer in the first place. I have decent skills in programming and I have average skills in pixel art. I took part at the LD48 as a Sound Designer and I am deciding to go savage for the LD49 and do it the Compo way. Better get Unity, Ableton and everything related ready to use! Good luck to everyone and have fun!

This is going to be my second attempt at Compo. I tried it for 48, but I had to drop out because I gave myself food poisoning. Maybe this time I will actually finish a game ^-^

Excited to dive in this October! Here are some theme suggestions I made

hello

Hey !

Ok, ROOTS has been stolen by shovelware devs (see this post to learn more about it) But that does not stop me from putting the official game on the store !

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE

The game is completely free and contains zero ad or in app purchase ! The game evolved a bit since the game jam, and has tons of new features and biomes :) I released it on Armor Games earlier this year, it has recently crossed 100k plays, and is currently the highest rated action game on the website.

So what are you waiting for? ;)

If you enjoyed the game, leave a rating and a sweet comment, it really helps !

(if you are wondering why the app requires network access, it's because I'm using analytics to monitor the game over time)

Edit: Changed one suggestion

Hey, y'all! I'm looking for an artist for Ludum Dare 49. We already have a sfx/sound designer and I'm the programmer. Please let me know if you're interested in the replies.

That you dont have to make three suggestions only because you can. Having just one is fine too (and you make the life easier on the slaughter-enthusiasts). And on that note - you dont have to go through every entry in the theme slaughter round. Its randomized [citation needed] so its not unfair to just go through the first hundred on you list.

Dont load unnecessary work onto yourselves

Still working on Another, my entry for LD 47.

Some of you might have played it, but it has became a completely different monster in the meantime, practically unrecognizable from the original entry gameplay-wise. (Also I wanted to share this screenshot because I like how the game is starting to look.)

The thing is I really wanted to avoid this LD because I can't help myself but burn out during each event, despite of how much I try not to. I usually work full 48 hours during the compo, save for 3-4 hours of sleep, and it always takes me a few weeks to recover from that. I'd really like to finish Another ASAP, and want to avoid the said burnout...

But I also feel that I won't be able to do so. I just dig this damn game jam too much. So I'll probably be joining you little rascals, whether I (or you) want to or not. Love makes us do silly things, eh? :heart:

Anyway. This has been a long-winded way of saying I'm probably in. See you in two weeks + few days.

p.s.:

HYPE!

For those early birds coming to the ludum page I am currently looking to create a team. I am a programming and this will be my fifth Ludum dare leading a group and I am looking forward to another exciting weekend. If your interested feel free to comment or message.

On the last LD I made such weak suggestions that I myself unconsciously x'ed 'em during the slaughterfest.

I think that this time I did not come up such bad ones as they give a lot of space to show off with creativity. It would be nice to see at least one of them in the top 30.

Anyway, it's getting late. Have a nice day, and remeber to smile at the duckling of luck!