Patacorow made this fun comic on voting. Harsay then made this comic. Dezzles literally redefines the PSA. Vinull has revealed evidence of an anti-potato movement. Maverick Programmer has discovered a rare breed of Potato. Voxel fights back against the Potato agenda. Dir3kt is recommending a different set of tools. Hatscat offers a look at the uses of potato. Oh Potato!

McFunkyPants wants you to join the Potato Challenge.

Special thanks to Sorceress for helping out.

* Links above in Bold are still open. If you haven’t cast a vote yet, click the link to do it. End times for each round vary, and many cross over.

* If you get an error message about needing to log in to vote, and you are already logged in, then try refreshing your browser (CTRL+F5).

How did I do?

You can view your results here:

My Results: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=me

The individual category results are just above your comments.

Top 50 Games

Check out winning competition and jam games here:

Compo Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=top
Jam Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam)

Winners are decided by the Overall category.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Categorical Top 25s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

Categorical Top 25s: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?more=1

(And for the press, a shorter Top 5′s is available here)

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 50 style lists per category.

October Challenge 2012

Yes, we are doing another October Challenge event. If you’ve done one before, you know the drill. We’ll be kicking things off around September 27th, so stay tuned! Companies looking to offer incentives should get in contact with me (Mike, AKA PoV, AKA @mikekasprzak).

Ludum Dare 25 – December 2012

You had a good time right? Great! We’re doing it again in December! We don’t have a specific date chosen yet, but stay tuned for that. Follow us on Twitter or join the mailing list to stay informed.

September Mini LD, hosted by Ratking

December not soon enough?

Tune in this weekend for a brand new Mini LD event hosted by Ratking. Unfamiliar with Mini LDs? It’s like a regular LD without the weeks of voting (and waiting).

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/01/09/suggestion-post-2/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 24 an INCREDIBLE success!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

* * *

- Announcement
- Real World Gatherings
- Warmup Games

Special thanks to Sos for helping us run the Theme Slaughter, and Sorceress for helping prune duplicates and repeat themes.

* Links above in Bold are still open. If you haven’t cast a vote yet, click the link to do it. End times for each round vary, and many cross over. Due to PoV being away all day Thursday, Final Round will begin sometime Wednesday Evening (EST). (Old Links)

* If you get an error message about needing to log in to vote, and you are already logged in, then try refreshing your browser (CTRL+F5).

How did I do?

You can view your results here:

My Results: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=me

The individual category results are just above your comments.

Top 50 Games

Check out winning competition and jam games here:

Compo Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=top
Jam Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam)

Winners are decided by the Overall category.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Categorical Top 25s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

Categorical Top 25s: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?more=1

(And for the press, a shorter Top 5′s is available here)

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 50 style lists per category.

Ludum Dare 24 – August 2012

You had a good time right? Great! We’re doing it again in August! We don’t have a specific date chosen yet, but here’s some facts:

• We will avoid scheduling it the same weekend as PAX and Assembly
• Mike likes to schedule things later in the month
• 24 is an interesting number… VERY interesting, and I don’t mean that it’s a Friday

Stay tuned for that. Follow us on Twitter or join the mailing list to stay informed.

May Mini LD, hosted by The Sophie Houlden

August not soon enough?

Tune in this weekend for a brand new Mini LD event hosted by Sophie Houlden. Unfamiliar with Mini LDs? It’s like a regular LD without the weeks of voting (and waiting).

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/01/09/suggestion-post-2/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 23, our 10 year anniversary, an INCREDIBLE success! We hope to see you again in August!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

Special thanks to Sos for building and running the theme pruning site.

How did I do?

You can view your results here:

My Results: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=me

The individual category results are just above your comments.

Top 50 Games

Check out winning competition and jam games here:

Compo Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=top
Jam Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam)

Winners are decided by the Overall category.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Categorical Top 25s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 8 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

Categorical Top 25s: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?more=1

(And for the press, a shorter Top 5′s is available here)

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 50 style lists per category.

More Ludum Dare 22 links

- Keynotes!, with Fydo, NieloGD, and special guests Sos and Dogbomb
- Theme Voting Results
- Post Event Post
- Survey Results by Breakdance McFunkypants
- DogBomb’s 100 Game Video Extravaganza
- Wallpaper of 890 games, by ExciteMike

Ludum Dare 23 – April 2012 – ** 10 Year Anniversary! **

It’s pretty crazy when you think about it, but the next Ludum Dare event coming up in April will be our 10 year anniversary. Yes, we’ve been doing these silly events for 10 years now! Wow! Be sure to stop by in April for the big one! Lets break 1000!

Ludum Dare at the Game Developers Conference

Phil and I are regular attendees at the Game Developers Conference, so if you too are attending, stay tuned. Last year we did a meetup as well as an afternoon Game Jam at NoiseBridge. It was a lot of fun hanging out with with everybody. We don’t have our plans figured out for next year yet, but stay tuned!

January Mini LD, hosted by The Grieve

Afraid of life without Ludum Dare?

Tune in next week for a brand new Mini LD event hosted by The Grieve. Unfamiliar with Mini LDs? It’s like a regular LD without the weeks of voting (and waiting).

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/01/09/suggestion-post-2/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 22 such a HUGE success! We hope to see you again in April! Lets break 1000 on the 10 year anniversary!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

With a theme like Alone, we realize the possibilities for storytelling, sadness, and generally playing with emotion are plentiful. There’s been much debate whether Humor should be retired in favor of a more general category. Mood has been our favorite for a while now, but as a term it doesn’t exactly emphasize humor in any way (if anything, humor gets lost in mood). So to appease both fans of the funny and fans of the serious, we’ll try both.

We hope you like the addition of Mood to the entry voting categories list.

Special thanks to Sos for setting up the community “hot or not” style theme pruner, and everyone that helped us get our final list.

Upcoming Game Jams and Meetups during Ludum Dare weekend

Here’s a list of real world game jams and meetups taking place over Ludum Dare weekend:

• United Kingdom – Cambridge – CB Indies
• South Africa – Cape Town – Flier, SAGD Website
• Scotland – Aberdeen – Website, Link #2 *NEW*
• United Kingdom – Coventry – Details, Midlands Indies *NEW*
• Australia – Melbourne – Jamsite Facebook Event Page *NEW*
• California – San Francisco – IGN Indie Open House, contact @crypticsea (email) *NEW*
• Ohio – Columbus – Central Ohio Gamedev Group *NEW*

If you’re hosting a Ludum Dare related gathering, let us know! Make a post here on the site with details, and we’ll add you to the list!

Other News

• Warmup Weekend! Have you prepared for LD22 yet?
• Info Graphic Survey of Jammers and Ludum Dare participants.
• Dos and Don’ts for setting up your game by Mathias Zarzecki

Top 50 Games

Due to our HUGE recent increase in submissions, we’ve bumped the top 20 to a top 50. Check out the best competition games here:

Compo Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=top

Winners are decided by the Overall category. In addition to the top 50 compo games (solo, stricter rules), here are the top 50 jam games (solo and teams, relaxed rules):

Jam Top 50: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam)

Congratulations to all the winners.

NEW: The lists have gotten so big lately. So to keep the site fast and snappy during the heavy loads (events and results), we had to truncate them at 50. Don’t worry though, you can see your individual categorical ratings on your games page.

Categorical Top 25s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

Categorical Top 25s: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?more=1

(And for the press, a shorter Top 5′s is available here)

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 50 style lists per category.

More Ludum Dare 21 links

- Keynote!, with Breakdance McFunkypants and special guest Sos
- Theme Voting Results
- Post Event Post
- Wallpaper of all 599 games, by ExciteMike

Interesting Tags: montage, motivation, foodphoto, food, deskphoto, desk, timelapse

October Challenge 2011!

Yes, we’re doing it again this year. Details about the upcoming event will be posted soon.

In summary, yes, basically the same thing as last year. Go make money.

Ludum Dare 22 – Coming December 2011!!

Stop by again this December for our next regularly scheduled event. We’ll try to have a date nailed down a month or two ahead of time. Don’t forget the mailing list, and Twitter.

September Mini LD, hosted by increpare

Still got that Ludum Dare fever?

Tune in Friday for a brand new Mini LD event hosted by increpare. Unfamiliar with Mini LDs? It’s like a regular LD without the weeks of voting (and waiting).

A Busy Busy September

Mini LD isn’t the only thing going on this weekend. Breakdance McFunkypants has posted a comprehensive list of 7 game jams going on this weekend (and/or ending/crossing this weekend). Check it out.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/08/29/5-jams-in-one-weekend/

Don’t let the URL fool you. There was more going on than initially thought.

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/08/30/suggestion-post/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 21 such a HUGE success! We hope to see you again soon!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

In these final hours, PLEASE give games with a low number of ratings a try. You can use this following link to view a sorted list of all games with the least number of votes:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?sortby=rate_in&q=

Tune in late Monday night (about an hour after the clock strikes zero) for the results.

Special thanks to Sos, Quin, and many others for helping prune the theme list.

Other News

Results for MiniLD #28 are Live!

Last chance to say “I’m In” and be part of the keynote!. Closed.

Breakdance McFunkypants is writing a book on Game Jams.

ghbrvlowabrvfladberogvlwrvfwlo games wants your games to put on CD!

Dark Acre Jack suggests Google Hangouts (video chats) during LD21. **WILD**

Arowx suggests adding tags to your I’m in posts. **NEW**

Important

We have now installed Caching (W3 Total Cache) on the LD Blog. Contact PoV (Mike K) or Phil Hassey if there are problems.

Here are your results:

Top 20 Competition Games

You can check out the top 20 competition games here (including ties):

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=top

Winners are decided by the Overall category. To see the complete list, hit the “Show All Entries” link at the bottom.

Categorical Top 5′s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 20 style lists per category.

More Great Games from the Jam!

The Jam is huge – simple as that. With 64 games this time, the Jam is now larger than some of the earlier Ludum Dare events. I regret that we still don’t do more for the jammers, but don’t fret, we are thinking of you. We’d like to encourage everyone to check out the Jam games, and leave a comment. Here are four to get you started:

Rainbow Riding Hoodz by Mr_Hk_ and team

Tri by ratking

Lonely Fortress by Winterblood

How to be a Girl by cosr

Again, this is just a taste of some of the great games to be found in the Jam.

See them all here:

ALL JAM GAMES (64) <--

Seriously, go check them out!

More Ludum Dare 20 links

- Keynote!, with Sos
- Theme Voting Results
- Entry counts in the final minutes, by me
- Wallpaper of all entries, by ExciteMike

Interesting Tags: montage, motivation, foodphoto, food, deskphoto, desk, timelapse

IndieGames.com’s 250 Indie Games You Must Play

Editor of IndieGames.com Michael Rose has recently released his new book “250 Indie Games You Must Play”. I know we’re a pretty significant source of great freebies and not-so-freebies (see the featured games in the sidebar), so I fired off a question last night: Did any Ludum Dare games make the book?

Mike had this to say:

Yep, quite a number [of times] actually

We here at Ludum Dare love talking about ourselves, and though we may not have coffee tables to prominently show a book on, coffee is a significant source of caffeine, so I’m sold.

Visit your favorite Amazon and pick it up.

Ludum Dare breaks 2000 on Twitter!

As the organizers, Phil and I tend to amuse ourselves each event with little statistics to gauge the growth of the community. One I’ve been keeping a close eye on for LD20 is our twitter follower count. Early this morning, the @ludumdare twitter account finally broke 2000 followers! Wow!

We use the twitter account as a way to share little updates. Reminders, press coverage, and the occasional amusing quip we catch in the Twitterverse or on IRC. If you’re in to that sort of thing, and do the twitter thang, follow us!

Also if you haven’t already, sign up for the mailing list. Even if you do hound twitter reading each and every post, we make an effort to get the most important news to you via e-mail too.

Ludum Dare 21 – Coming August 2011!!

Like usual, stop by again in August for our next regularly scheduled event. We’ll try to have a date nailed down a month or two ahead of time. Don’t forget the mailing list, and Twitter.

May Mini LD #26, hosted by drZool

I agree, August is quite a ways away. How about this weekend then? Yes, tune in Friday for a brand new MiniLD event hosted by drZool. He’s been teasing with D’s all month… I wonder what he’s up to?

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/08/30/suggestion-post/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 20 such a big success! We’ll see you again in August!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

For a complete list of theme voting results, go here. If you haven’t yet watched the keynote, GO HERE. Seriously, check it out, it’s great.

Theme Announcement

The theme will be announced once the clock above hits zero. The website tends to gets hammered at the start time, and we can’t get the theme results if we can’t visit the site ourselves! So instead of refreshing the ludumdare.com/compo/ website constantly, we recommend checking one of the following places for the theme:

Historically, IRC gets the theme first, so if you want it soonest you should go there. Twitter and the hub page should get it next, followed by the website and the mailing list. Traffic should lighten up within 5 minutes, so feel free to come back and start blogging. Hopefully we can avoid bringing the server to it’s knees this time. Thanks everyone!

Special thanks go to LegacyCrono for setting up the Google spreadsheet, and everyone that helped prune the list to a more manageable size.

Watch the clock at the top of the site for your local start time, and hit up the rules page if you’re new to Ludum Dare. See y’all soon!

Top 20 Competition Games

You can check out the top 20 competition games here (including ties):

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=top

Winners are decided by the Overall category. To see the complete list, hit the “Show All Entries” link at the bottom.

Categorical Top 5′s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 20 style lists per category.

Ludum Dare 19 Jam Games!

Ludum Dare 19 was our 2nd run of the new combined Competition and Jam event, and the results do not disappoint. So in addition to the 242 entries created by individuals for competition, there are 43 more games created teams or individuals that decided to take an extra day to polish their game. Be sure to check those out here:

ALL JAM GAMES (43) <--

[ ALL COMPO GAMES (242) | ALL GAMES (285) ]

Wow!

So THAT was Ludum Dare 19

We are keeping score here, and again, the latest event managed to annihilate our prior best … IN DECEMBER of all months too (our historically lowest month). Back in August, we were impressed that we inched 10 ahead of our prior best, with 213. This time, we were just 15 entries shy of 300! And if you look at the theme voting, more than 600 people cast a vote for the final theme!

And THAT was Ludum Dare in 2010

Lets crunch some numbers…

Event Games: 203+213+285 = 701
Mini LD Games: 2+21+2+6+14+24+9+7 = 85
October Challenge: 24
Total Games for 2010: 701+85+24 = 810

Thanks to Sos for helping me with the math.

Seriously, every single one of you that participated, whether you finished a game or not, you’re awesome. Phil and I (Mike/PoV) took over running Ludum Dare in 2007, and every event since we’ve been constantly impressed at how much it’s grown, and continue to be amazed that it keeps growing so much. What will 2011 bring? Will we break 1000 games?

A big thanks to all of you for helping us make 2010 such a fantastic year.

More Ludum Dare 19 links

Lots of timelapse videos to dig through. I still haven’t had a chance to watch them all, but I’ll give them a browse soon. I’ll try to do that this week.

- Keynote!, starring Some Bear Thing — With Special Guest Mjau
- Ludum Dare 19 Timelapse Videos, list assembled by Fififox
- Entry counts in the final minutes, by me
- LD Census, by demize
- Wallpaper of all entries, by ExciteMike

Interesting Tags: montage, motivation, foodphoto, food, deskphoto, desk, timelapse, bear

Ludum Dare at the Game Developers Conference

Attending GDC? Stay tuned! Like last year, Phil and I want to get a whole bunch of us together somewhere, perhaps more than just once!

If you haven’t already, sign up for the mailing list, and we’ll keep you informed. Also, you can follow Ludum Dare on Twitter.

Ludum Dare 20 – Coming April 2011!!

Like always, stop by again in April for our next regularly scheduled event. We’ll try to have a date nailed down before GDC (Feb 28th), so we can brag about it at the conference. Again, don’t forget the mailing list, and Twitter.

January Mini LD #23, hosted by Jonny D

Fans of LD19′s Silly Themes, take note! Jonny D has a surprised planned just for you. Tune in this month for a very special Mini LD.

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/08/30/suggestion-post/

Thanks everyone for coming out and making 2010 such an incredible year for Ludum Dare! We’ll see you again in April!

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

243 Compo, 42 Jam! Wow! New records across the board!

Since the holidays are coming up, we’ve decided to make judging last for 3 weeks instead of the usual two. Everyone has been randomly assigned 20 games, so please make an effort to play as many of those as you can. The list will grow over time, revealing more games to play.

Our next major event (Ludum Dare 20) will be in April 2011. Stay tuned to the mailing list for details.

Also! Game Developers Conference attendees, stay tuned! Like last year, we’re looking to arrange a meetup. Details will be here on the website, but I’ll be sure to ping the mailing list once things are more concrete.

Thanks again everyone for coming out, and we hope you have a safe and Happy Holidays.

* * *

PS: ** InaVegt, please check your game and post a comment. For some reason it’s flagged as disabled (an LD website bug?). Let me know where it should be (Compo/Jam) and I can fix it.

Judging has begun! If you are a Mac or Linux developer, it’s recommended you make a Windows version available as soon as possible. Go here to add additional builds to your entry.

Thanks everyone for coming out and making Ludum Dare 19 such a big success.

Jammers, get back to work!

Check out the results of the voting here. Check out the keynote here. If you’re making a timelapse video, check out this guide for some suggestions that’ll make it better for us to use at… well… cool real world events that may happen.

And if you haven’t already, check out the Rules and Guide page to learn more.

Interesting Tags: montage, motivation, foodphoto, deskphoto (or desk), timelapse

Special thanks to Pekuja and Deepflame for doing the majority of the pruning.

Useful links: LD Gathering Discussion