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Theme Suggestions for Ludum Dare 24
Posted by PoV (twitter: @mikekasprzak)
August 4th, 2012 5:13 pm
It’s that time again… actually a few days later than that (thanks for the prod Sorceress), but it’s time to suggest themes for the upcoming Ludum Dare event!
https://docs.google.com/dFJ6Wm1hZnRxYzh1X0VQTS1NOTgzYVE6MQ
Results: https://docs.google.com/0AvoAtpvLDdrPdFJ6Wm1hZnRxYzh1X0VQTS1NOTgzYVE
We’ll keep suggestions open for about a week, then begin pre-filtering shortly after. Suggest a theme today!
Everybody: Evoloution of Kitten Fishing!
I can’t think of a possible mechanic to fit this theme.
Although I suppose that’s how this competition works.
ON IT, CHIEF!
(Yes, I just understood an inside joke! ACHIEVEMENT GET!)
As award, you’re now allowed to post a whole dictionary into the theme suggestions.
Let’s see if you get THAT one
I think this is the first time I’ve actually been able to submit ideas for a theme. First things that came to my mind:
Power tools
Paint
Lava
Mostly because I feel like we would have some fun game mechanics with something that’s restricting but pretty open-ended at the same time.
Nup, was in LD23 too.
What will the pre-voting culling consist of? Limits on words, letters, ect… Also are we encouraged to throw as many ideas at you as possible, or shall we limit to one or two per head?
It depends who does it. When I did the culling last time, I went through the list by hand and deleted duplicates, spam, and any distasteful suggestions. Also anything else too silly to be a viable theme. I was quite liberal with what I let through, such that we ended up with a list of >1000.
I could have done a better job of removing duplicates because some themes were quite similar to one another. I should have made an algorithm for that.
Then we had the pre-voting slaughter (hosted by Sosowski) to identify the top 100 from that list.
Also I didn’t realise I was supposed to have removed past LD themes as well. I thought those would have been filtered out after the slaughter, so some of those got through to the final 100. It was a bit of a rush that evening iirc.
I’m going to try to come up with as many ideas as I can as a creative exercise.
That is, as many viable themes as I can, not just random nonsense. Don’t want to make *too* much muck for the pre-voting.
YAHOOOOOO! Theme voting is one of my favourite parts of any Ludum Dare.
Remember to think outside the box. Here are a few pointers:
- if your theme is longer than three words, it will be culled
- if your theme is a “restriction” (size, palette, tool) it will be culled
- if your theme was used in a previous compo, it will be culled
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride: some themes are destined to always be in the top ten but can never make it to number one:
- evolution
- kittens
- fishing
I can’t wait to see the awesome theme ideas you come up with. I’m going to submit a couple roght now.
I knew ‘Pasting a dictionary into the theme suggestions’ wouldn’t go far!
“if your theme is longer than three words, it will be culled”
What about ones like “Not What it Seems” or “There are too Many”? I actually have a few that are four words but are still succinct.
Just wondering about your thoughts on that.
This is why I think it’s better to filter by hand, than use arbitrary rules.
I don’t think this is true, since “It’s Dangerous to go alone, take this” was a winning theme.
That said, a concise theme will certainly have a better chance.
Sorry about that, I was wrong about word count restrictions.
Please consider the above to not be hard rules but merely suggestions.
why can’t kittens become a theme
There isn’t a rule against it, it just never wins. It’s kind of a tradition around here.
Doh, due to those restrictions, one of my themes will be culled. Oh well, the other 5 may get through
I’m scheduling in some time to actually participate in this LD. It’s gonna be great!!
I’m so excited for my first full Ludum Dare! Last time I was able to vote on some themes, but this is the first time I can submit and take part in the competition! ;D
So excited….
If you are going to make a culling algorithm for word count, can you skip words like: a, the, are, is, which, that, can? That way we can have theme suggestions that are grammatically correct while still begin vague enough to allow creativity.
Hm, there’s no captcha. Someone could easily make a script to paste a whole dictionary :>
Nice reference
Well, I made the script. Now I’m going to suggest ‘kittens’ a 100k times :>
I want kitteh!
Are we not allowed to see the themes already suggested this time around?
Apparently not. I looked everywhere for it!
Well, 228 theme suggestions and I’m out of ideas. Still quite a few for one person, though.
You counted? =)
Counted? I have them all in a big text file!
It took a little while to copy/paste all of them into the form.
finnaly! why not make the theme this year……..NON-LINIAR SANBOX GAMEPLAY!!!!!
or physics as a wepon….WHOS WITH ME PPL!
plus dis will be my first ludum! i just learned ALOT of gml and i a READY!
bring on the 3-d libraries!!!!!!!!
u no txt spk is hrd 2 rd, pls us nrml spk pls, k thx bye
i know a theme…FRIENDSHIP!
*NO!*
okay…. politics!
*HEEL NO!*
umm…………cute animals?
*good good….*
I KNOW! MEME CATS!
*NO WAY RETARD IT WAS EXTREME FISHING KITTENS NOW AGREE WITH ME OR BE CULLED >:0*
0.0
The Evolution of Kittens Fishing. No “extreme” adjective. It’s already extreme enough.
Booooooo… I wanna see what other people have posted!
Me too!
I remember the number of troll responses there were when the suggestion list was public. While I would like to see what people are suggesting, I would rather this list not get bloated by people who just want attention. Besides we will get to see the results during voting anyway.
Parasprite responses will just be removed though, right? And even if we can’t see the list, ponies will still stick in some.
My theme suggestions: http://pastebin.com/iq4KEw6b
Aren’t a lot of those past competitions?
A few of them, maybe. I didn’t bother to look, I was just brainstorming.
‘Contrast’ was the theme for @Folis ‘s miniLD, just a couple of weeks ago…
I’ll go with Mental Illness and Kittens
The only one I can think of at the moment is:
“very itchy”
I like it.
I thought “Negative Space” would be a versatile and fun theme to go with.
Does ‘one-button games’ count as a restriction? I personally don’t think so, but I can see how some people might disagree. I’ve entered it anyway; what do you guys think?
I like it. While it is a bit of a restriction in technical terms, I think it’s a valid theme that could be heavily expanded upon.
If people don’t like it they could make games literally about singular buttons…
Time Travel ftw! I want one million Dr. Who games!
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