Ludum Dare: What to Do When the Theme Isn’t Working

It’s inevitable. When the theme is announced, more than a handful of people don’t know what to do with it. The theme might be too esoteric or vague. The theme might be too restrictive. It could suggest a particular kind of game, and that’s not the kind of game they want to make. Maybe they just simply don’t like the theme. We’re a diverse community, and so the theme doesn’t work right away with every one of us. This was me when “An Unconventional Weapon” was announced for LD 32. If this is you, this post is here to help you work through the theme so you can get to working on your game. Don’t give up at the start because you don’t like the theme! Remember, Ludum Dare is about making a game. The theme is there to help. This post is meant to be encouraging and helpful.

Trash: A Story of Uncertainty – Postmortem

Last week, I participated in Mini Ludume Dare 53. A mini Ludum Dare is a much more relaxed version of the full version, and it usually has some specialized rules. The number of entrants are usually much reduced (this one spawned 63 entries). In the case of Mini Ludum Dare 53, the rules were quite the same as a regular Ludum Dare (make a game in 48 hours with readily available tools). I chose to participate in the mini LD mostly because I’m moving next month right after the full Ludum Dare event, and I wouldn’t have the time to participate then.

For this mini LD, I made a game called Trash: A Story of Uncertainty [download link]. What follows is my postmortem, a look at how I made the game and what I was trying to portray with the game. As with all of my postmortems, if you haven’t played the game, then reading further will completely spoil everything that the game offers, so if you haven’t played the game, read on at your own risk.

Follow the Sun – Competition Version Postmortem

Over the past weekend I made a little game called Follow the Sun, for Ludum Dare 28. I want to take some time to go through the process of making the game, talking about what I learned and how I approached making a game in 48 hours.

For those of you who do not know what Ludum Dare is, it is a “competition” where you make a game from scratch in 48 hours, based on a theme that is determined by voting (the theme is released when the competition starts). This also means that you have to make all the assets yourself in that time frame, and code it from the ground up. I say “competition” because it’s more about actually making the game, than it is about winning. It’s a difficult thing to make a complete game in 48 hours!

In this postmortem, there are a bunch of things that I want to hit upon. First I’ll give a description of the game. Then I’m going to talk about the theme of the game vs. the theme of the competition. Then I’m going to go into what I couldn’t do due to time running out, and what I couldn’t do due to lack of skill. Finally, I’ll talk about my general experience making Follow the Sun. Suffice it to say this postmortem will ruin part of the game for you if you haven’t played it. If you don’t want to get story-spoiled, play it first before reading on!

Into the Dark for You: A Postmortem

Finally I am getting around to writing a postmortem for “Into the Dark for You”.  “Into the Dark for You” [ITDFY] is the game I submitted this past weekend to Ludum Dare (#22) the 48 hour game design competition. ITDFY can be obtained here. It is recommended that you play it, if you can, before reading too far as I’m just about to ruin the whole game for you.

YOU CAN’T GO BACK

I made a little game this last week for the Ludum Dare 22 Warmup Week.  The game is called “YOU CAN’T GO BACK” and you can get it here (direct). I thought I would spend some time before Ludum Dare actually kicks off (in two hours as I write this) to discuss my Warmup Week process.  I will be explaining the entirety of “YOU CAN’T GO BACK” here, including how it was designed and how the game works. As such, if you’re on a Windows machine and you want to play it first, go do that before reading on!