This will be my 26th ludumdare in a row. xD i started at LD24, and am still here apparently. I’ll be using these this time:

IDE: Eclipse - Eclipse Foundation

Engine: LibGdx - Open Source, originally written by Mario Zechner

Graphics: aseprite/paint.net -david capello/Rick Brewster; Tiled - Thorbjørn Lindeijer; TexturePacker - main guy: Metaphore, also: tommyettinger, devjn, terafog, thefacecore, hangman and voidburn.

Fonts: FontForge - George Williams and the FontForge Project contributors

Sound: Audacity - Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg

Music: Cakewalk by BandLab

Timelapse: Chronolapse - keeyai

Good luck out there. I hope i can make something fun. Have a great event fellow ludumdarians!

Hey everyone! I'm excited to announce that Intel is a sponsor of Ludum Dare 49!

• :newspaper: Press Release

I've had the privilege of working with Intel over the past decade as an early member of their Software Innovator program, and I'm thrilled to have them supporting Ludum Dare. I've participated in their developer programs, flown out to shows and events on their behalf, and when asked, I always recommend that developers check out what Intel is up to. I'm thrilled to have them on board as we take these next big steps with Ludum Dare.

Speaking of developer programs, Intel asked me to highlight the Intel Game Dev Boost program, which I agree is something you should know about, especially all the Indie developers out there. Here are some details:

Intel® Game Dev Boost

Whether you're making an Indie game or looking to expand and commercialize a Ludum Dare game, one of the hardest things is getting your game noticed. Intel understands that, and wants to help you.

Their solution? The Intel Game Dev Boost program.

https://software.intel.com/.../gamedev/get-boosted.html

In short, Intel wants to find really cool projects to showcase at various events and in the marketing activities they do.

There are 2 steps to getting your game boosted:

• Add your game to Intel DevMesh
• Go through the Intel Graphics Self-Test process

The self test might look daunting, but at the top of the page they clarify that they care mainly about you going through the process, not your score. Intel does happen to be getting into discrete graphics, so relaxing that makes sense.

More details can be found at the link above.

Intel DevMesh

When you're working with Intel or when you want to work with Intel, you start is by adding your projects to DevMesh. DevMesh is a public showcase website for projects built-on or running well on Intel hardware. It's also what Intel uses internally for tracking projects.

https://devmesh.intel.com/topics/36

Getting your project on DevMesh is pretty straightforward: Create an account, create a project, and populate it with text and pictures. Frankly it's not that much different than creating a game page here on ldjam.com. :wink:

To get the most out of DevMesh, Intel recommends you go through the Game Dev Boost program. But having your work on DevMesh signals that your game works with their hardware, and that you're interested in working with them.

Stay tuned!

We'll have more exciting things to share in the coming days and weeks.

For the 8th... 9th? Consecutive time I'm in for LD. Wouldn't miss it for the world 😉.

Rather than post all the tools I'm using I'm instead going to link to a tool I created for finding the right tools. It has inspiration, tips, any number of free tools and more!
There's no ads and I don't get anything from visitors I'm just trying to help out. It's all hosted on GitHub if you want to open a pull request! I hope you find some use from it!

📚 Visit JamTips here.

I must be in a more cynical mood than usual. Normally I keep maybe 5% of the themes; this time I'm at probably 1% if that.

What makes a theme bad: 1. it is too vague. e.g. "Air" 2. it is too specific. e.g. "Roguelite" 3. it is inevitable (hi Thanos). e.g. "game gets harder as you go"

A good theme doesn't necessarily give you an idea instantly, but can be utilized in as many creative ways as possible (i.e. it could be interpreted for mechanics, aesthetics, or story instead of locking you into only one of these). It doesn't have to be one that sounds "intellectual" or "cryptic" (like deliberate oxymorons for the most part); if anything these are infuriating, don't usually make for good games, and can feel a bit too pretentious (if it makes no sense when you think about it, it shouldn't be a theme). I've seen a number of posts in previous LD's bashing one-word themes, and I respectfully (ok, maybe not so respectfully, but still) disagree. These can be fine, as long as the word chosen is one that could be applied in many different ways, and gets you thinking creatively about how to use it (e.g. one of the best themes I've seen for a game jam was for the Global Game Jam a few years back, which was "Heartbeat"; heck, it even led to the "simulator" fad). In other words, if you are going to make a one-word theme, go with something like "vessel" over something like "cat" (no, I did not suggest either of those for themes).

also, if you want to make a game rated AO, do it on your own time; it will always be flagged if you suggest it as a theme.

I don't usually follow trends, but this site is sort of an exception. I decided to do Theme Slaughter in two sessions, recording both of them just in case.

You know, it's impressive how many themes have got to do with gravity, light/dark, limited color, subversions of common tropes, and time; good GOD there are *ENTIRELY * too many themes focused around time! Though, I'd imagine this has always been the case with previous jams.

Some themes seemed like good ideas for a specific kind of game, but not for over 2000+; other themes learned me some new proverbs, and of the existence of the amazing word 'Hullabaloo'. Also, one last thing....

I don't use Intel, I use AMD.

1000 themes ded :frowning2:

2000 themes slaughtered. Less than 100 saved. 😐

I want to participate in this jam, but I don't want to use any game engine/library for my preferred language, because I am stubborn and refuse to use them.

So instead, I am writing my own game framework in a time span of 12 days.

I am writing it in C#, with my own wrappers for OpenGL and GLFW that I spent the last 5 hours making. I am now working on mathematics, a entity-component system, and a whole bunch of basic pre-made components so I don't have to write it during the jam.

Also, I don't know how to draw/animate at all, and I have no artistic skill whatsoever. I can't even draw a good-looking stick figure. My game is gonna look amazing.

Yeah, my game is probably gonna suck. But hey, this is my first game jam. I am only 16, and I am wanting to use this as a learning experience.

For the last two events, I did not finish the slaughter round. But this time, I managed to finish it again. In general, the themes became a bit better. I kept some more themes than in the last years. Let's see, what the voting round brings to us.

I wondered about all the "boxes"-themes. They may be okay, but I personally don't like theme. I also find the "light and darkness" themes annoying. There are dozens of them every event.

This time there were surprisingly many themes that I like :)

But only because I did have to flag almost as much themes as I actually tagged to keep. I don't know if that's only this session, but I remember keeping much more last time.

As I am feeling in a mood of roasting stuff, I'll do a quick recap:

• Some themes require knowledge 99% of the participant probably don't have or don't intend to have anyway ( AI, ML, VR )
• 5+ words sentences - instant no
• Some themes were just big no-nos (innapropriate sexual themes in a game jam, tf really?)
• Politcal assumptions?
• No, I am not a weapon, a currency or I don't wanna to control environment around me for 100th time
• No, I don't wanna re-do my games
• No, I don't wanna re-do last theme
• Some already pointed out light vs dark. As long as it's defined in a suitable way, I don't honestly mind. But because of that, I actually gave my theme a no as well.
• No, I don't know who / what XXX (enter name surname of celebrity, youtuber, book, movie, series) is, and I don't want to make a game because of it
• Speaking of celebrities, I think we have a tons of Dr. Michio Kakus running around on LD, since the amount of time dilitations themes is off the chart.

Ohhh.... I feel much better now :joy:

It's not all bad though and I found some golden nuggets in the water! Some of which even I didn't anticipated at first.

Anyway, looking forward for voting section!

Good morning good evening or what ever time you find yourself in. Currently making a team for this years ludum dare. Right now I am looking to get 2-3 artists and 1 more sound/music person. Message me if your intrested. KingOfNova #9334

Hello!

I'm Yann and I'm looking for a team to partake in the Ludum Dare 49

This will be the 7th Ludum Dare I partake in and 24th Game Jams overall

I'd love to contribute my experience to YOUR team as a Producer :slight_smile:

I keep things organized and people synchronized during a Jam - most importantly, I'm not here to impose my ideas

-------> Communication front and center - let's all have a good time together - and if we can get a decent game out of it, even better!

I'll be off work during the entire 72h + following week to test and rate games :-)

Here's my itch.io where I show off the most impressive games I've made during past Game Jams --> https://yannroirand.itch.io/

Please contact me here in the comments or on Discord if you're interested --> https://discord.com/users/320100445123117057/ [StrangerYann#1119]

Looking forward to working with you - have a great week and a fantastic Ludum Dare

Toddles :slight_smile:

Sometimes, a rickroll is exactly what you need after going through 1100 themes that are almost all the same.

Glad to see the number of frog-related themes seems to have gone down, last Slaughter had a lot of frog themes!

I finished this round. In my opinion there are some recurrents themes same as the last LDs, and interesting themes around time, environnement or perspective. I'm so excited to discover the final theme !!!!