

Ludum Dare is about to start - hoffcoder
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo

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Lerc
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](http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD13.html)

Some were insanely hard
[http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD14.html](http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD14.html)

Some were pretty but otherwise fairly crappy
[http://fingswotidun.com/Ludum20](http://fingswotidun.com/Ludum20)

This one just about gave every web-browser a hernia
[http://www.fingswotidun.com/ld21/](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](http://www.fingswotidun.com/ld24)

~~~
TillE
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.

~~~
nimblegorilla
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.

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laserDinosaur
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.

~~~
Lockyy
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.

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

~~~
Lockyy
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](http://tinyurl.com/q8m7hnd)
Source code: [https://github.com/Lockyy/YOGO-Moment-of-
Interaction](https://github.com/Lockyy/YOGO-Moment-of-Interaction) Gallery:
[http://imgur.com/a/13k1R](http://imgur.com/a/13k1R)

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netcraft
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?

~~~
munchor
Just try watching the top viewed ones on Twitch.

Personally, I enjoy watching Ananace, Notch and TheCherno. Oh, and don't
forget deepnight (Sebastian Bénard). He has won 3 or more Ludums and I love
watching him making them.

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quill18
If you have any interest at all in game programming, I highly recommend that
you participate. It's invigorating to have a fixed deadline that forces you to
actually FINISH game instead of just add to a heap of incomplete ideas.

This is going to be my 8th time participating, and I'll be livestreaming the
whole thing -- which to me is at least 80% of the fun. It helps that I have a
large audience to keep me motivated (I'm not Notch, but I am a YouTuber).

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Rusky
I've enjoyed doing short game dev competitions many times before but I've
never done LD. I'm planning on live streaming it this time if anyone's
interested: [http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/04/25/im-in-with-a-
live-...](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/04/25/im-in-with-a-live-stream/)

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w1ntermute
Any word on whether Notch is participating this time around?

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netcraft
He just tweeted that he is, but isn't sure if he will stream.
[https://twitter.com/notch/status/459703644213227520](https://twitter.com/notch/status/459703644213227520)

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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.

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bluetshirt
So when they say "game", do they really mean "video game"?

This is a semantic shift that leaves me uncomfortable.

~~~
zevyoura
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.

~~~
quill18
People have in fact done so.

