The snowman emoji was show up in the slaughter round before. I think it would be crazy to use none text theme.

here's all Miscellaneous Symbols "en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Unicode/Miscellaneous_Symbols"

♨♨⚅⚉⚉⚭

It has been a while since I have done a Ludum Dare, a particularly long while since I have done a Ludum Dare solo, and a very long while since I have tried writing a game from the ground up in C/C++ using only low-level libraries and some basic tools for creating art and audio for it. So I am thinking I might try just that a couple of weekends from now in Ludum Dare 55. (Assuming nothing pops up between now and then that would prevent me from participating).

In the meantime, I think I am going to start looking at SDL3 to see how well that would hold up and, if so, start building up some basic, game-agnostic engine code. I think that is within the rules, right?

Could also be looking at what my art pipeline is going to look like for that weekend. If it's just going to be me, I can assume that I won't be capable of doing anything particularly complicated. I think just sticking to sprite graphics would really help in that regard. Ditto for music & sound effects. There are tools for all of these things. I should get an idea of what I can juggle within a weekend on my own.

And also getting together some kind of engine, too! The next couple of weeks will be a good opportunity to take care of all the things that I would normally be relying on Unity or Godot for, or at least as much of that as I can code up on my own in a couple of weeks. :fingers_crossed:

Looking forward to this one guys.

Recycle

• Has many interpretations

• Is something that can easily be a gameplay machinic.

Why past themes have sucked

• Few interpretations

• Not something that can easily be a gameplay machinic.

Real life overwhelmed me and ate my last entry, but that's not gonna stop me from feeling PSYCHED UP for LD55! :fire:

We all picked our themes (Folklore FTW!), got days off work, and getting hyped for a new group project!

Last time we made Prickle, and now it's on Steam!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bth8jbelufo

Prickle is a grid-based, Sokoban-style puzzle game with a laid-back, wholesome vibe. The full version features more levels, new mechanics, enhanced art, and controller support!

You can Visit our Steam Page and don't forget to ✨Wishlist✨!

Guys,let's have some fun!

Just thought I would upload this

Hello Everyone! We’re counting down to the next LD in this thread: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/stardust/one-day-one-song

While doing that, we post our favorite songs and tell a little story about why we shared that one. Come and join our countdown at the post linked below smile

Please follow the instructions before posting :-)

He just threw a great suggestion out there like it was nothing lol, so now I'm stealing "Generation Ship" for myself hehe

It's comiiiiiiing ++

here are my 3 suggestions

• Folklore
• Generations
• Unlikely Friendships

As usual, I'll be using TIC-80 + Janet Lang

And as always, my suggestions are not so original, but at least I did not forget to suggest something (as for some previous LD's) :smile:

Screenshot wasn't working :( -- Simon says -- Death is the start -- The chosen one --

not my usual flavor of Wacky Zany Themes but honestly I'm just trying to encapsulate Things That Sound Like Good Ludum Dare Themes From The Ol' Days, themes lately have been way too dime-a-dozen itch.io jam themes

not guaranteeing that I'm In til the theme drops but if I am in then u know me, good ol' godot boy + most likely doing team stuff with my ld partner, haven't been much for solo stuff after my creative burnout/depression/grief issues the past few years

I come up with and vote positively on themes that I think will have multiple different interpretations. Why? Purely selfish reasons. I want to play other peoples game, and I don't want to play 30 games that are all the same. With that out of the way, here are my themes:

Snowman -> Because it is rather open ended, I see this being turned into a number of different types of games. I can see snowball fights, snowman building games, card games about snowballing. In addition to mechanics, winter is a very nostalgic season for a lot of folks and I could see there being a variety of cultural traditions being showcased in more story driven games. Plus there is the meme right?

Sideways -> This is a mechanical powerhouse of a theme. It immediately brings to mind rotation; a powerful mechanic in a variety of genres. Puzzle games (the game-jam darlings that they are) can do a lot with such a direct yet evocative theme. For story focused games, "things going sideways" is a term for things getting very difficult (The shit hits the fan). For platformer games it brings conjures up gravity switching and camera manipulation. For FPS games it could easily be the simple act of shooting "gangsta" style which could come with different modifiers. There is a lot of ways this could go and thus many different styles of games I would get to play.

Echoes -> Whooo boy. Echoes could mean a lot of different things, but it feels very powerful as a word. Sound based games where you have to shout and listen. Interesting mechanics regarding players having a microphone. Mechanical games where every ability repeats to a lesser effect. Earthquakes, Water, and Time all can be said to have echoes.

Anyways, those are my picks. Away I go, woooooo

Hi everyone!! I'm super excited for this Ludum Dare, and I hope y'all are too. This'll be my 13th time entering (only my twelfth time finishing, though; curse you LD52 for lining up with a flight!) and I'm planning to return to the compo this time.

I'm finally out of college, I moved in with my boyfriend, and I work from home, so the conditions are perfect! ...at least compared to that time I entered a compo on the literal floor of an empty apartment. That's a story for another day.

This time I just want to make something fun, accessible, and appealing. That might seem like an obvious goal, but many of my recent entries have been rather narrative, experimental, or otherwise "artsy." Making something with the player's enjoyment as a priority is something I've severely been lacking, and I'm more than happy to mix things up this time around.

I usually don't share these, but why the hell not:

Good luck, daredevils!

Excited to once again deal in reckless overambition with my partner in crime.

Here are my LD 55 Suggestions...

Here we go with the mandatory "These are my suggestions" post :-)

Hard to believe April's almost here already; looking forward to 55 and maybe actually finishing a game :)

The A.I.-generated images weren't exactly what I was looking for but hey, free is free.

Download PNG wallpaper here: https://imgur.com/4gFAE1b

My suggestions for this one:

• Making
• Faking
• Slice of life

Will my itch to make and finish games be stronger than my desire to spend less time on the computer and have a healthy weekend? We will see!

It's time for my usual refresher on Theme Suggestion & voting tips! People often complain about LD themes being bad, so this post is a drop in the bucket to help you choose better themes, especially if you are less experienced!

3 guidelines to come up with a good theme:

• Keep it simple: The more descriptive or specific your theme is, the more restrictive it will be (in a bad way) and the more difficult to scope. You can do more things with "Season" than "4 Seasons"!
• It's a theme, not an idea/restriction: Don't rob the creative genius away from your fellow jammers. Instead, send them in a direction with a genre-agnostic spark that can fuel both game design and aesthetics/fantasy! "Only 2 Buttons" does not help you know what kind of game you want to make, while "Mist" gives you a cool mental image and still has potential for fun mechanics! While it's not always possible, try to avoid pigeonholing people into certain genres (I'm looking at you, puzzle platformers! :smile:).
• Don't try to be subversive: A gimmick theme for the sake of being a gimmick often falls flat and gets slaughtered. Generally "You are XYZ" (ie: You are the Villain) and "XYZ is key" don't work well. Memes and partisan/political themes are also the quickest to get buried.

An easy "gorilla" way to come up with a decent theme, is to focus on an action, and object, or a "thing that does a thing", and to try and abuse the many synonyms/homonyms in the English language. Mirror, Fall, Glass, Land, Horn, Spray, Hair, Superposition, Treat... Try it yourself it's pretty fun!

As for the jam itself, preparation is key! Make sure your tools are all ready, get the machine oiled up with some practice and, if you're gunning for Compo, prepare some boilerplate code to speed things up on the architecture & non-game side such as UI! A game with a nice title screen and working basic settings (volume!) feels already super polished!

I may be participating this time hehe. Good luck to you all and don't neglect your sleep!

Well, shit

For anyone who needs some more inspiration for good theme ideas, here are the recent Ludum Dares sorted by how many people submitted a project compared to how many signed up.

I've been fiddling in Godot for a while now and made some headway on a larger hobby project, but I'm hoping to complete a smaller scope game for Ludum Dare. It's my first time, so I'm not expecting much. I might not even finish! But I am very excited to see what this feels like.

Happy to hear any suggestions people have. I've done the rounds on YouTube, which led me to say "screw it, I'm gonna give it a shot."

• Redemption
• Penitence
• Social battery

And yes, I will participate, because I plan to finish one game I'm making for NaNoRenO 2024, and the finale will depend on the chosen theme for LD 55.

•Vendor

I visioned that the developer made the player either make their character like a vendor, or just center a game around it. A tycoon, perhaps?

•Inn

A theme like early 2000's MMO's where you can gather up quests, maybe even give one!

•Background Interacting w/ The Game

I don't think many games which has a blurred background has an interactive background system. But I believe that this theme could work in a number of ways: puzzle games, games where you know when the enemies are coming via the background, or just that you'd have to pick up objects from the background, who knows?

•Vendor

Could be anything from a cliché tycoon game to a game where you’d have to purchase ‘’Volunteering Workers’’ -NOT SLAVES- to build up an empire.

•Inn

I am talking about the old 2000’s MMORPGs, but maybe you are the one who gives the quests?

•Background Interacting w/ The Game

Most games don’t care about the background: add a simple blur, call it done. But maybe, a game that is not a puzzle game could interact with the background: a simple system where it shows you where the enemies are, another small system where the background is the only damage source -but I believe this would only work in top-down or platformers-, I believe there are many more examples to give.

See you all in 14 days!

rolls sleeves

Anyway, here are my suggestions!

I've been doodling in every Ludum Dare game I've made since LD51.

I've worked really hard for the past 6 months but still can't draw fine art. This is what I've got now.

Thanks everyone who encouraged me, Wish I could make a crazy game this time

It's been a long time coming, time to claim the highly prized 10 Consecutive Ludum Badge (that i made up in my mind). Cheers to y'all, looking forward to see the submission!

I was looking for a schedule of pre-jam events (i.e. theme slaughter and rating rounds), but couldn't find any. Can anyone say roughly when all of that will take place, or at least how often should I check the site?

Wouldn't want to miss the pain of looking through 3000 themes!

For how much remains the question, but I'll be supporting and assisting my SO (@wouter52) again (like with the game 'Burn out'). For now though, the themes I suggested:

Haven't taken part since Ludum Dare 42, nice to see some things don't change.

Here are my suggestions

What makes a good theme?

I'm not picky enough I guess, because I generally like most of the themes that make it to the final few rounds of voting. But I'd probably say it's better to be too broad than too narrow. And I prefer atmospheric over mechanical themes, but a combination of both is always nice. What about you?

Not sure if I'll end up having the time and/or energy to participate this time.

But at least I got inspired and did a little photographic study of the thematic motif I observed manifesting in my environment during outdoor activities today.

:hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole: :hole:

My suggestions:

I hope none of these cause me to get given the "Bad Theme" lecture!

After a long break from LD, I am back. I will be working with Unity this time and will participate in the compo

My Theme suggestions:

1. Big Time!
2. Keys to Success
3. Replica

I am NOWHERE near a good coder, artist, or sound designer; but these events are always fun to partake in. I like hearing feedback and improving future Ludum Dare projects and stuff outside game jams too. I'll be working with my good friend EqualEnergy again for this jam. I'm hoping for an atmospheric theme because I really wanna code really satisfying effects into the gameplay of the jam. For some reason the first thing that pops into my head are those Earthbound background effects.

Anyways here are my 3 suggestions!

-In your mind

-Light source

-Nostalgia

Goodluck for everybody who's participating!

I've missed out on quite a few of the more recent Ludum Dares, hoping to be available and able to work on this one, at least for most of the time (may have to work on part of the final day or so, we'll see)

Anyway, here's my theme ideas:

I mean it's really short if you know how to beat it, but I polished the **** out of it :smile:

Here's a trailer: youtu.be/_uqNUzKShIg (LD page doesn't work with links right now for some reason so copy-paste if you wanna see)

And a gif

And a picture

•Vendor

Could be anything from a cliché tycoon game to a game where you'd have to purchase ''Volunteering Workers'' -NOT SLAVES- to build up an empire.

•Inn

I am talking about the old 2000's MMORPGs, but maybe you are the one who gives the quests?

•Background Interacting w/ The Game

Most games don't care about the background: add a simple blur, call it done. But maybe, a game that is not a puzzle game could interact with the background: a simple system where it shows you where the enemies are, another small system where the background is the only damage source -but I believe this would only work in top-down or platformers-, I believe there are many more examples to give.

See you all in days!

This will be my 32nd ludumdare in a row. xD i started at LD24, hi. 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 fellow Ludumdare Participants and fellow @pixelprophecy followers (unicorns)! GenCon was last week so it'll be great to focus on the art and code with equal proportion. Hope I can really get a nice zinger this time that goes well with the theme.

Useless

This theme lends itself to many ideas. Having to deal with useless items or skills on the level of game mechanics. Or having to perform useless activities in order to progress on a more thematic or philosophical level. It invites a reflection on use, usefulness and the opposites thereof Another angle might be having to decide what is useless or not and the dilemma of not always having enough information to decide. What is useless or not could also change in different levels, areas or modes of the game.

Distraction

To be distracted is a big part of our digital and physical lives. Exploring Distraction as a mechanic or a narrative theme could prove interesting. Even on a more philosophical level games being a medium of distraction could be an interesting exploration. The questions of "What are you distracted from?" and "What is distracting you?" will need to be answered in some ways here. In a different direction it could be about distracting opponents in order to win.

Lost

Being lost or having lost something, finding lost things, items, places. All great things that have been successfully explored in games. Feeling lost, dealing with loss or grief are more narrative elements. I think this theme could be very evocative for many ideas, that I would love to see.

Well i guess this themes сan lead to quite interesting mechanics and solutions.

Don't think I will be able to participate but I do like contributing to the themes. Hopefully something different and interesting enough for people to think about.

I thought a Toriyama Tribute theme could be fun, considering his bodies of work in manga, anime and games. Creative Storylines you don't often see in jams due to time constraints, but would be cool to see how people could work in a short story. And I think Cursed Mechanics, people could go pretty wild with, especially in a cursed Halo kind of way. Going against the norms and expectations of mechanics and just making something completely bonkers and insane.

Seeing Folklore losing in LD54 was sad, for me it sounded like a fresh limitation (setting-wise and not mechanic-wise, as usual)

Write that down is a tribute to older games where you needed to physically write some information down in order to progress (to analyze, to remember, to draw a scheme, etc.). Miss that in newer games a bit.

And Learn the rules - we just can't have too many games with knowledge-based progression!

:star2::tada: Hey there, amazing people of the gaming universe!

I'm absolutely buzzing with excitement to introduce the stellar crew joining me on this epic adventure for the 55th Ludum Dare! Drum roll for our fantastic lineup, please! :drum::sparkles:

First off, let's give a warm welcome to a shining new star in our constellation, LD rookie Jaquillyn!

Quill's going to bring a splash of color and creativity to our project, transforming our game into a visual treat! I'm a huge fan of their emoticon magic, and I just knew they'd be perfect for sprinkling that artistic sparkle on Ludum Dare.

Up next, the incredibly talented Bizzybee, my partner in crime from the last Ludum Dare and the creative genius behind Beach Brawl's catchy tunes!

With Biz's musical mastery, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the incredible soundscapes that will be our game's heartbeat!

And now, let's roll out the red carpet for our Ludum Dare veteran all the way from Belgium, the one and only Frank! :video_game:

Frank's previous LD games are a rollercoaster ride of wit and hilarity, and I'm thrilled to have his coding wizardry and bug-busting prowess on our side. Here's to making this Ludum Dare an unforgettable team debut!

Lastly, there's little old me, Balimaar, your enthusiastic Project Leader.

Together, we're gearing up to tackle every challenge that comes our way and turn it into something spectacular. So, hello world, and fingers crossed that the theme is not manure, right?

Let's do this! #LudumDare55, here we come! :rocket::space_invader:

We are in!

Haven't participated in an LD since 37! Our team of 4 is ready to get going :raised_hands:

avant garde art collective COMPLETELY UNHINGED has arrived

we have spent a collective total of zero (0!) hours actually learning godot in preparation for this! Prepare to be amazed! pic related is an actual photo of me, meet me outside papa john's and i'll kick your ass

joining this time is the regular crew of me, @steinuil, @zuu-zuu, and our wageslave friend seki, who gets literally five minutes off of work every day and he has chosen to spend it with us. I have facedoxxed him here below.

The other two wouldn't send me any pictures because, and I quote, "you'll just put them in another stupid shitpost" and also I'm doing this on a voice call with seki while the others are watching garupan. I only gave seki five minutes to draw his picture. I am truly a reprehensible human being.

I have two courses that are kicking my ass but I look forward to closing my eyes, covering my ears, and screaming into the void as we once again frantically try to figure out how to export for windows

翻訳ソフトのライセンス期限切れ。

We are a team of three:

• Dan Kobylarz (@kobylarz): Composer, voice actor, Sound designer
• Vincent Cortese (@vincent89): Programmer, designer
• David Brocek (@iluvatar): Artist, designer

Here are some of our games from previous Jams:

Smasher

DeckHex

Homunculus

Beep Boop

The Night Owl Murder

ayyy i finally released a game for reals >:D
This was my LD50 game from 2 years ago already!? dang... time flies when you're jammin like crazy

here's Steam Page if anyone's interested ^_^

looking forward to seeing all the awesome games yall come up with for LD55

No sure if I had to post a message here to participate. So to just in case... I'm in :) My suggested themes are: - Vacation - Magic Stones - Let the Universe decide

Excited for another Ludum Dare, which will be the third one for me! Can't wait to find out which theme wins this time. Made a few suggestions that I personally find interesting as a more narrative-focused game developer:

Initiation

Rebirth

Wish magic

First timer here 🖖 Unfortunately I missed the theme suggestion period. Wishing everyone a fun Ludum Dare!

...Aaaand done!

There were more good themes than usual, and less political/current events/ideological stuff to flag too! I can definitely see some very tough choices coming up in the finals.

Anyway, time to get prepared. Good luck everyone!

First timer here! Unfortunately missed the theme suggestion period. Wishing everyone a fun Ludum Dare!

For LD54, I made Inferno Collapse, a 3D platformer with 2D billboarded sprites.

This year's game will probably use a similar cartoony style, but significantly improved thanks to both feedback I got from the last one, and having improved my skills since then.

Looking forward to my third Ludum Dare!

:smile:

Could consider this for the theme.

Last year, I took part in Ludum Dare 53 as my first gamejam (with DETOUR which took 8th place in Innovation)

Since then, basically the world turned upside down for me: I opened a tiny game studio with my wife (https://nozomugames.com), we made 6-ish games in 2023 (4 of which were made on gamejams) and working on 2 more now, even participating in showcases with our games and talking to publishers!

And LD53 was what made me think that we can go bigger. Happy to hop onto the upcoming LD55. Hopefully many more gamejams to come!

I have missed 6 ldjams, after a perfect streak of 11 completed jams in a row. But I am not missing this one.

Hope to make something nice!

Well I can't say that I was ready for how painfully mid all of those themes were. Most of those either feels like it's found in a billion other jams or is painfully obvious that it's a troll theme that would lead to nothing. I did managed to find ones that could be interesting (yes even the fire in the hole one).

As for my themes, yeah 34 had to be removed because that would go horribly wrong. As for Expand, I was about to suggest that, but there were so many themes that feels just like that idea that I couldn't even supported... In the end, Polarity was the best out of them all, as I think it could give a lot of interpretations.

I've done both, but I don't know what to do this time. Most of the time I do these solo, but I occasionally like to find someone to collaborate with.

Are there any teams out there that could use a musician/game designer? My specialty is music, especially dynamic music.

Is it possible to know the theme a little bit earlier (for us)? We are doing a public in-person game jam in Germany and want to do it from Friday 17:00 to Sunday 17:00. Unfortunately, the theme is revealed Saturday at 03:00 here in Germany, which is pretty late and also makes it harder to grind 48 hours, since everyone needs to work at Monday, so a bit more sleep would be nice. :D Not to mention that we also need to clean up the place where we do the game jam.

As I'm slaughtering I thought I would write a couple of my personal opinions for what makes a good theme.

When I think about the themes I think about:

1. If the theme makes me excited to participate.
2. How varied everyones games would be.
3. If I would be excited to rate everyone elses games.
4. How much freedom vs restriction it gives the developer.
5. How many possible interpretations there are.

As an example, while slaughtering I saw the theme "Pirates". I honestly really like this theme even though it feels pretty generic, there are so many different aspects of being a Pirate, like cannons, the crew on board, mutinies, the boats, the swordfights as well as gunfights, treasures, exploring oceans/islands, it could also be modern pirates, or cyberpirates. It is however very visually limiting, I think a lot of the games would look similar, which is not as fun. But overall I would be very excited to see what games people make with this theme and I would be excited to rate them.

A type of theme that I'm personally not a huge fan of are the ones that feel like rules. Like "Every 10 seconds", it felt more like a rule that I had to follow than a theme to inspire me. Even though the games that came out of that were really cool, to me it felt frustrating to think of something with that theme.

Theme measuring metric?

I think the ratio of sign ups to submissions could also be a metric of what makes a good theme. If people aren't inspired enough to finish their game or even come up with one then I think that is a sign of a bad theme:

If we use this as the main "good theme" metric, then "A Small World" is our golden standard for themes (so far).

My favorite

Personally my all time favorite theme was Game Off 2022, which was "Cliché". It felt like a million possibilities but it's still a theme across all games, there are so many fun interpretations and you basically get to set your own limitations. I didn't get the theme at first but the jam hosts explanation made me really excited to make a game:

Anyways I might just be overthinking this.

Questions for you:

1. What do you think makes a good theme?

2. What has been your favorite theme from previous jams?

3. What theme would you be most excited for from what you've seen in the voting so far?

Hey, I'm looking for a 2D artist who would like to participate in LD 55 with me. I speak German and English, but I prefer German. :)

I may seem a bit picky, but I don't consider things like a specific game genre or type of game (like 2D, 2.5D isometric, Tower Defense, etc) to be a good theme. I also don't really care for things like "Only X Button(s)", or "You are the _". I see Only 1 Button submitted every year. I'm old enough I remember playing a lot of Atari 2600 when I was very young, the iconic joystick with a single red button. The technology has come so far since the early 80's, why limit your creativity that way? :smile:

I try to look for things that I think could be interpreted multiple different ways by different people so everyone doesn't make the same game. I saw quite a bit of variation way back in LD42 for "Running out of Space", but even then there were quite a few people who took the theme very literal and made some type of endless runner game where you were in space. After playing 10-20 of those during the voting round, you start to wish there was more room for interpretation of the theme.

All that being said, I also normally try to not vote for duplicates, so if there were 12 copies of something I DID think was a good theme, I probably only upvoted it once or twice, not all 12 times. Maybe that's the wrong way to do it, but that's what I personally do.

We won't talk about the ones that were flagged as being inappropriate or offensive, as they probably know what they were doing and we don't feed the trolls any more than needed around here :wink:

With that out of the way, here's how I fared for the slaughter round this year:

Hi Hi!

I read the rules of the competition, but I did not find information about the process of publishing the game, how the game application will be sent, whether it needs to be deployed somewhere or it is enough to drop the link to the repository, etc. I would greatly appreciate any information on this.

I also think it would be cool to exchange useful resources like free sprites, assets, generators, etc., which I would also appreciate!

Good luck!