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Comment by Lerc | Hacker News Reader

I did Ludum Dares 6,7,8,9,10,13,14,15,20,21,24 and 26.

That's a bunch of stuff that I've made that I wouldn't have without the Ludum Dare. It let me explore ideas and learn a lot. I haven't Won a Ludum Dare, nor do I expect to (I got 1st for graphics once) The standard is extremely high.

Here's a sampling of some of mine that play online.

Some Games came out a bit mad http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD13.html

Some were insanely hard http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD14.html

Some were pretty but otherwise fairly crappy http://fingswotidun.com/Ludum20

This one just about gave every web-browser a hernia http://www.fingswotidun.com/ld21/

And some were, well I don't know what the hell this is, but it was pretty neat. http://www.fingswotidun.com/ld24

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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.

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?

Yeah, I made a gallery of my progress through development as well. Unfortunately it gets pretty slow after several decades of simulation, not much chance for optimisations in the time frame given. Windows download available here: http://tinyurl.com/q8m7hnd Source code: https://github.com/Lockyy/YOGO-Moment-of-Interaction Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/13k1R

Good themes inspire people on multiple levels. "You only get one" does nothing except imply a limited gameplay mechanic. Minimalism inspired some people to create games based around minimalism in art or philosophy.

Another problem with "you only get one" is that it came after "10 seconds" which came after "minimalism". The last 2 themes are just subsets of minimalism and it is getting kind of old.

Honestly, a theme doesn't have to "inspire" in order for you to be able to explore new game mechanics, or even make something interesting. It is there as a guideline, a limitation in order to bring about real creativity. On top of that, having a prompt to bounce off of helps focus each developer into making something within the short amount of time given. Even the theme "minimalism" could bring about all sorts of interesting games if you give it enough thought. (heck, you could basically do anything you want under that, if you define the theme to mean minimalistic graphics/abstract representations of something in a minimal way. or even minimalistic mechanics that allow for complex puzzles/levels. look a VVVVVV, that could EASILY be a candidate for the minimalism theme, and is a widely popular and acclaimed game)

LD14 has a very innovative mechanic, you should expand on that.

Did you use Box2D in your games?

No, usually I just wing it and write my own physics during the compo. I've gotten quite quick at throwing together simple verlet physics engines.

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