Comments on: New Entry Voting Category: Mood

By: bluescrn

bluescrn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:11:24 +0000

It may not be perfect – It’s less of a problem than a Humor category, that’s irrelevant to a majority of entries, and a highly subjective ‘mood’ category that’s really already more than covered by the existing categories.

LD used to be a contest primarily for coders. It’s now a contest primarily for artists/designers. A balance needs to be maintained.

By: bluescrn

bluescrn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:05:06 +0000

By ‘technical’, I wasn’t trying to suggest a ‘clean code’ category… better examples would be things like impressive graphical effects, well-implemented control systems, clever enemy AI, and so on

In the early days, Ludum Dare was a fairly hardcore coding contest – with quite a lot of C++ entries, and no Flashpunk, Unity, etc.

As a coder, it’s a shame it’s morphed into a what is more or less a game design and pixel art contest, and it’d be nice if it was more inclusive to good coders that aren’t so great at art or creative game design, or that want to try something that *isn’t* based on lo-fi pixel art.

By: Winterblood

Winterblood — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:51:04 +0000

The trouble with “technical” is that it requires a certain level of experience to recognise when something is technically complex, and to know where the developer has been clever and where they’ve just used someone else’s clever API. I suspect very few of us are familiar with all the features of all the APIs and engines that are used regularly, let alone the obscure ones. So it’s really hard to judge…

By: thristhart

thristhart — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:34:57 +0000

a technical category would be a disaster, imo – I’ve not talked to a single person post-LD who said they had anything resembling good code for their game. Part of the fun for me in LD is throwing away all my good coding practices and just making it work.

By: bluescrn

bluescrn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:11:33 +0000

The category we’re really lacking is ‘technical’, or something similar.

Mood seems a little bit redundant, as it’s already incorporated in the art, audio, and theme categories.

Do we really need another ‘arty’ category, when we don’t have a single ‘programming’ category? Personally, I think the categories could be slimmed down, maybe to:

Fun
Design (= innovation, theme)
Style (= graphics, audio, mood)
Technical (= coding, special effects, production values, stability)
Overall

By: Winterblood

Winterblood — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:15:39 +0000

I like the idea of seperate categories – it’s really hard to say game X is funnier than game Y is atmospheric. Apples and oranges. Also, I favour moody games, so when the voting is over I will be able to play the top twenty moodiest ones. Another day I might want to play all the funniest. A truly inspired game might manage to be both funny AND moody. Plus, one extra winner per event! It’s all good IMHO…

By: digital_sorceress

digital_sorceress — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:51:00 +0000

I like the new Mood category.

But I don’t think we need both Mood and Humor because they are both measure emotional content, that to some extent are mutually exclusive. eg, a serious or scary mood doesn’t gel with humor. While humor might indicate a silly/ironic mood, and as such the categories are measuring the same thing.g

Furthermore, not all games strive to be humorous, and that makes it an odd category. It feels almost like we’re pressured into adding humor to boost our scores.

So I feel that one category for emotional content is sufficient: call “Mood/Humor” maybe?

By: EvilDemonCreature

EvilDemonCreature — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 07:23:58 +0000

I’m going to get such a low ranking on mood/atmosphere, but I’m still glad it got added. How else can people compete working around a theme that practically begs for it?

It’ll be good for future LD’s also. I am the kind of guy that is inclined to match theme to the mechanics of a game and design everything else around that, but I love having the incentive to start a design with just the mood/feeling of a theme, and build the mechanics around that instead.

Also don’t ever remove humor. Humor is and always will be the best. (If I could just make a game that has both in spades, that’d be the most meta-win ever for me personally)

By: thristhart

thristhart — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:28:48 +0000

It figures that the only LD where I’m determined to have less of a story-based game, you add a story-based rating.

too bad, my game’s not going to be atmospheric and you can’t stop me

By: Fenyx

Fenyx — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:57:07 +0000

Keep both. There is a need for both. There are funny games, but the category Humor gives them an unfair advantage against solemn games. This eliminates that advantage. Removing humor would give solemn games an unfair advantage, so you can’t do that. Either both, or neither, is the key.

By: jplur

jplur — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:46:25 +0000

Humor is the only category I’ve come close to placing in.

By: TheLolrus

TheLolrus — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:17:18 +0000

The problem is it’s counted in the overall vote I believe as well. This means funny games are more likely to win.

By: caranha

caranha — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:45:39 +0000

Bring in the Emos! I joke, I joke.

By: Nizan

Nizan — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:24:46 +0000

Everyone remember that being sad isn’t the only mood! If someone makes an exceptionally happy game, that counts too!

By: cptalbertwesker

cptalbertwesker — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:04:24 +0000

Thats ashame, the Humor category is the only one I usually excell in

By: Vilborg

Vilborg — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 06:34:50 +0000

I like funny games! I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to tell people whether their game fit that. Just because a lot of the games would get good humor scores just means that we have lots of funny games.

By: TheLolrus

TheLolrus — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 06:29:05 +0000

Much better than humor. A lot of games are quite the opposite…
If a game has sadness it wouldn’t do so well on the ratings, so that makes funny games have an unfair advantage. They’re not all funny!

By: SonnyBone

SonnyBone — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:51:31 +0000

I would argue that if you have 600 games … and 300 of them include humor, then it’s a category worth keeping.

By: Martoon

Martoon — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:47:35 +0000

I’m not going to have a chance to participate this time, but oddly enough, given the theme and the Mood category, my entry for last LD would fit better in this one than it did in Escape.

By: bluescrn

bluescrn — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:37:45 +0000

Do remove humor! If a category applies to <50% of games, there's something wrong with it!