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Ludum Dare is about to start

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Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#11

Post by laserDinosaur »

nimblegorilla wrote: post #7
TillE wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done it twice, and while I like the concept and it was great to get feedback on my game and everything, the themes leave me cold. People vote for the most boring, broadest things. I gave up after "minimalism". A theme should inspire . It shouldn't just sit there as a framework for you to shove your existing ideas into. I'd love to be prodded into exploring new game mechanics, and LD just doesn't do that for me.

Minimalism was a great theme and that round had some of the best ludum dare games in my opinion. On the other hand, I agree that things like "You only get one" are not very inspiring.

Strangely I find the opposite - Themes like 'you only get one' imply a certain gameplay mechanic that I think leads to some real interesting games. You only get one..life? Second? What thing in games do we take for granted that we get multiple of? Themes like 'minimalism' are too broad for my liking - what does minimal even mean? Is it minimal because you only used 20 of the keys on the keyboard? Is it minimal because you didn't use every single feature in the Unreal Engine? I could submit any platformer ever made and say "it's minimal because it's limited to a 2D plane". It's so broad it quickly becomes meaningless.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#14

Post by jameshart »

bluetshirt wrote: post #12

So when they say "game", do they really mean "video game"? This is a semantic shift that leaves me uncomfortable.

yes, when video game developers talk about 'games' they generally mean video game. It's a convenient shorthand in their community. Much how when a computer programmer refers to a 'file' they typically mean a 'computer file' rather than a physical one, when an electronic engineer says 'circuit' they mean an electrical circuit rather than a racing circuit.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#15

Post by bayesianhorse »

I sometimes think that it would be nice to know the theme in advance to know if you want to spend two days on this.

The idea behind the theme revelation is to prevent cheating, but then again there is no cheating protection beyond a code of honor anyway. I've seen tons of games in LD that only barely fulfilled the theme.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#17

Post by Lockyy »

laserDinosaur wrote: post #11
nimblegorilla wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimalism was a great theme and that round had some of the best ludum dare games in my opinion. On the other hand, I agree that things like "You only get one" are not very inspiring.

Strangely I find the opposite - Themes like 'you only get one' imply a certain gameplay mechanic that I think leads to some real interesting games. You only get one..life? Second? What thing in games do we take for granted that we get multiple of? Themes like 'minimalism' are too broad for my liking - what does minimal even mean? Is it minimal because you only used 20 of the keys on the keyboard? Is it minimal becaus…

I agree with you on the broad themes point and I really liked the 'You Only Get One' theme, at first I couldn't get past the 'one gun', 'one life', 'one minutes' ideas that I felt everyone would go for but I ended up making a simulation where you only get a single interaction after world generation and then it simulates a little village gathering food and building farms etc. and I was really happy with the result.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#18

Post by flexd »

netcraft wrote: post #2

I always enjoy watching the streamers during this weekend. Its amazing how much you can learn by just watching someone code. This one snuck up on me, I haven't heard of a lot of streamers this time - does anyone know of any good ones to watch?

I was watching Notch coding his christmas santa game in Dart/WebGL the last time, that was fun.

If you try to keep up with what he/the streamer is writing in your own editor you can get a better feeling of how certain things work.

It's like a nice interactive workshop where you get no help and it's hard to keep up.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#19

Post by zevyoura »

bluetshirt wrote: post #12

So when they say "game", do they really mean "video game"? This is a semantic shift that leaves me uncomfortable.

Actually, there's nothing in the rules that limits the competition to video games; I wouldn't be surprised if people had created print & play physical games for previous LDs.

Re: Ludum Dare is about to start

#20

Post by laserDinosaur »

Lockyy wrote: post #17
laserDinosaur wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely I find the opposite - Themes like 'you only get one' imply a certain gameplay mechanic that I think leads to some real interesting games. You only get one..life? Second? What thing in games do we take for granted that we get multiple of? Themes like 'minimalism' are too broad for my liking - what does minimal even mean? Is it minimal because you only used 20 of the keys on the keyboard? Is it minimal becaus…

I agree with you on the broad themes point and I really liked the 'You Only Get One' theme, at first I couldn't get past the 'one gun', 'one life', 'one minutes' ideas that I felt everyone would go for but I ended up making a simulation where you only get a single interaction after world generation and then it simulates a little village gathering food and building farms etc. and I was really happy with the result.

That sounds really cool - Do you have a link by chance?
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