Hey folks! I’ve started taking notes and collecting thoughts on a Ludum Dare website rewrite. What would help is knowing what people are thinking as they use this current website. While you’re participating this weekend, I ask that you come here and leave a comment sharing what you’re thinking. Things you don’t like about the website/event, things that seem wrong, and things you do like about it. No matter how small, the irks and pains, unnecessary things, and even those little moments that make you smile. I have my assumptions, but you telling will be best. 
Thanks!
EDIT: Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of comments! Don’t even worry about reading them. Repeating what’s been said just reinforces the importance of something.
Some quick feedback about the new header :
– Overall it’s much better, good job!
– Why use onclicks instead of classic links? I can’t middle-click links to new tabs. Hoping it’s
– Since I’m bored, here are some possible tweaks for the countdown blocks: http://i.imgur.com/eCcL2Zv.png
*Hoping it’s temporary
Mainly I was trying to make the whole DIV in to a link, and unfortunately onclick was the easier cross-browser way do this. I’ll look in to the more annoying way. 😉
– the background color is absolutely ugly next to the other colors
– the header design could be much cleaner
– too many different fonts used in the site
– the curved edges take away from the previous flow, imo
– the page now is too dark
– I don’t like the steam widgets: unecessary clutter, by linking to a monopolistic service – people will find Ludum Dare on Steam without you pointing to them
Also the graphics for the events are totally unecessary, because they have to be totally random until the theme is announced.
In posts, such as this one, there is a lot of wasted width, which makes the page long. I don’t know if there is anything you can do to fix that or not.
Finding a list of the previous winners needs to be easy to find on the home page. I feel like it should be the #2 priority thing on the page, besides the current competition. The only place they seem to be listed is a tiny 10px font at the bottom of a tall hectic sidebar. The list of all competitions should be more up front too, be in order of latest to oldest, and ideally have some imagery. I like the countdown in the header. The upcoming comp one should be a link to be consistent- linking to vote on a theme? (the related Suggest a Theme button could be connected visually)
Most of the links in the header are not middle or right click-able, and only respond to the left mouse button. I hate this because I pretty much open 90% of links through the middle mouse button as it opens in a new tab. Please use real links and not link-hacks.
Other than that it looks much better.
Fixed.
We need a standard set of platform emoticons. Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Steam, etc.
Rather than having to do this:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/2014/11/02/october-challenge-a-hole-new-world/
It’s quite difficult to find previous compos games. An easy and apparent way to find the games of previous competitions would be nice
What Rick Hoppmann said is on point.
I put together a quick mockup to illustrate some of those points. My goal was to make the page cleaner and easier to parse. I lightened up the overall color. Used subtle shadows instead of a border to draw attention to buttons and toned down the curves.
http://f.cl.ly/items/0F0A3c1b1K2W241N1P0N/Screen%20Shot%202014-11-12%20at%203.15.20%20PM.png
Like others have said, it would be nice if there was a quick link to all of my Ludum Dare games. Yeah, I could just type “http://ludumdare.com/compo/author/gatechgrad/” into my address bar each time, but I usually end up scrolling down to past events, clicking on an entry, and then View All Entries from one of my games.
Its always been hard to find old game entries. I still want to play games after the judging ends!
Can you make it so that the twitter-widget on the sidebar ignores retweets? It’s just that sometimes the thing gets clogged up a bit with what is essentially the exact same tweet repeated over and over again.
Also: When I visit the site during a jam (or during the judging), I often want to see whether anyone has left any comments on my work (be it posts or games) and right now the only way to get to my old posts is through the wordpress dashboard (which I don’t like too much.) Basically, it would be nice if there could be a link to ludumdare.com/compo/author/my-name-here on the front page (preferably where it says “Welcome, my-name-here”.
Bring back the tools page!
I can’t find it anywhere
Hey, just a little bug i found in the website.
– On the front page when you click on top jam results for ludumdare 30 it brings up the top compo results instead of the jam.
What I don’t like, the facility of being unable to vote without an account, I have friends and family who are reluctant to create an account just to vote on my game after they have tried it. Can a captcha be inserted so Spam won’t happen?
What I suggest, maybe when the next ludum dare is run, the submitter can specify what language/ide/engine/code they have written it in, then a person could look for the same language they have used to be able to compare source code, etc Using a drop down choice for consistency?
Only participants can vote. Accounts are necessary for leaving a comment though.
Would it be ok to make your own games rating status visible at all times on the rate entry page. Kind of like this
http://imgur.com/ZuNqPn5
I guess it might be considered a bit selfish but right now the only way to see your own D rating is to search for your game. The addition of your stats to the front page was a great addition. But it is only on the front page.
Also I don’t care terribly much for this but just an idea, I wish there was a way to show more games on the rate entries page or “hide” them temporarily. Late in the voting period the page gets saturated with games that you just shouldn’t or can’t rate. (Broken, multiplayer, not playable on your OS, etc.) There is no way to get them to move except wait.
Forgive me if this has already been requested, but it would be nice if the new site had some way to discourage people from repeatedly making posts begging for more ratings. For example, this user has made at least 10 posts asking people to play his LD31 game:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/author/saswat/
This kind of spam takes up frontpage space that could be filled with higher quality content.
As a response to people getting “lower placements with higher scores” due to the growing number of participants, maybe it would make sense to add a % placement? That way it’d be easier to keep track of your development between the LDs. Like “you scored in the top 30%” or something along those lines?
Keep the score averages, but add some “top 20%” or whatever stat as well. Lots of people asking how many entries there were, so perhaps making that more visible as well (although the top XX% should ease that).
Moar options to search for games during judging. Filter by genre, for example. Would be great to rate games in the same genre and get them to rate yours, makes total sense. I guess exposing more of the metadata you collect (include platform etc) for filtering purposes.
Would like to be able to see for some games what I rated them versus where they ended up ranking.
Fix coolness, somehow. Perhaps keep but rename the existing one to something else, and invent a new coolness calculation as well.
Editing the game details after all is said and done:
Need a way to remove the embedded web version after judging ends. The web link is still there but embedding felt like a cheap and quick way to get people to play the game during judging, now it just seems a bit annoying.
Also, perhaps a way to add links to post-compo builds for people that really like your game?
@interface true, more choices for links would be nice. Right now it’s just enough for Web, Windows, os x, Linux and source. I love it when people have post compo and time-lapse, and sometimes you’ll want android and stuff too.
Some suggestions I received via e-mail.
Thanks Olly.
Is there a timelapse FAQ? There is nothing linked on the General FAQ page.
please for the love of everything. add a reply button to the comments on our games. it is very essential for me to clarify to the person something, he did not understood or he asked a question to which i can’t reply.
Typo on faq page “I want to talk with other developers. I need a question answered right away!!1<—"
– Add keyboard shortcuts to the theme slaughter page. (Suggestion: A = Good; D = Bad; S = Slaughter)
Original suggestion: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/04/08/accesskey-for-theme-slaughter/ (wasn’t aware this thread existed at the time)
Code available here: https://gist.github.com/misson20000/8a20b8f9dff3e2018440#file-themeslaughter-user-js
– Add a more prominent link to past LDs and mini LDs (searched for an hour all over the site and did not notice the sidebar until I was told it exists. Suggestion: Add a post which can be manually updated after each event and a button to it at the top – similar to the Ludum Deals button. )
– Add a prominent button to the profile page of the logged in user. For me to this: http://ludumdare.com/compo/author/errorage/
I would also like to offer technical help. I’m quite competent with MySQL, PHP, JavaScript and related technologies and I enjoy working with data. For the period after this LD, I was thinking of making a crawler for LD32 which would fill my own database, which I could use to make an advanced search engine. But while making the search engine sounds fun, making the crawler does not. If you’d like me to help with Ludum Dare features, write me a message through twitter or email (email address is in your database 😀 )
I’ve just seen this video on numberphile about voting and I think, it could work really well on ludum dare with a bit of twist to it. Here it is https://youtu.be/7c0CoXFApnM
Also, check out the extra bit.
I personally think there should be some kind of chat client or message system.
Would be pretty nice to keep in touch with other participants.
For example if you play a game and find a major bug or a part that isn´t playable, I think it would be nice if the game maker could notify the finder via message, that the bug is fixed so the finder can try out the game again.
Would also give the possibility to discuss with other developers without the need to add them in an extern chat
my account says wordpress 4.5 is out
I wish I could edit my own comments/deleting them.