Hello everyone! It’s time to kick off the final countdown to Ludum Dare 31 (Europe pun).
Final Round Theme Voting has begun. The highest rated themes from Rounds 1-4 will now fight in an intense 2 day voting battle, and the winner will be our Ludum Dare 31 Theme.
I hope you like the site changes. Some layout tweaks here and there, improvements, and A LOT of optimization. We’re still bound by a lot of old WordPress code, code I’m hoping replace next year (well, if I can afford to anyway). Making a new website is going to take time though, and we need something to hold us over (i.e. this). You can read a bit about my plans here, as well as what I’ve been up to the past couple months.
I’ll have more to talk about in a few weeks, but for now let’s have a Ludum Dare!
Fun Stuff
I’m really excited to share this. A friend of the band reached out to me, and this is the result.
If you’re jamming, be sure to check out the assets page. A lot of great stuff in the comments.
We’ve got a HUGE library of Wallpapers for you this time, including several wallpapers of graffiti by Robert del Naja himself. Check them out!
Plenty of Ludum Deals to check out. For those waiting for them, we now have Unity Pro trial codes for grabs. About a thousand or so. Good until January 4th. Let me know if we run out.
*NEW* We’ve also got a whole bunch of Unreal Engine 4 codes, good for 90 days of Unreal Engine access! More details on the Ludum Deals page.
Time to continue with the festivities. Let’s get you hyped up with some videos!
Ludum Dare Keynote, hosted by Yotam (Patacorow)
We’ve got a great keynote lined up for you, an Animated Keynote at that! Check it out:
Big thanks to Yotam for pulling this together.
Music Video!
Okay, I just had to share this too. Joe Williamson (JoeCreates) put together this wonderfully catchy Ludum Dare song, backed by footage from Ludum Dare games.
Just watch it, you’ll understand:
That’s it for now. Ladies and Gentlemen, here comes The Dare!
Tags: keynote
Okay I admit it, I voted for that snowman as well. But now I feel like I need a slaughter option…
I honestly don’t think the snowman is the worst option in that list π
That’s true, but out of all the bad options its the most likely to succeed. It just feels a little bit too restraining as I can’t see many ways of handling that theme without actually including a snowman somehow.
I’m not actually concerned or worried though, was meant to be said in a light hearted way.
Me too, I don’t really care what the theme is, I’ll make it work somehow. It’s just that given the option, I’d prefer themes that are more open to interpretation – and this list contains a lot of very prescriptive stuff. But in the grand scheme of things: BRING IT ON! π
Melting, fragile twigs for arms, pointy noses, coal in the mouth or coal in the eyes, stone cold killer named Snowman, snowman made of blood, winter Slender style horror with snowmen appearing when you’re not looking, magical top hat adventure, snow accumulation (growing boulders of snow, etc) … the more I think about the less awful I think it is.
Think hard enough and any theme works.
Since it doesnt explicitly say snowman, you can just interpret it as an image.
Could mean lotsa things, winter? snow?
It’s not as restrictive and boring as a few of the alternatives
BUG!
If you view the final round voting page on android, “Machines” is replaced with a snowman emoji, while the unicode snowman is the final option.
Hahahahaha! I forgot. Okay, lemme fix that. π
The REAL, TRUE LD31 theme song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YwXff-i1fY
Do you want to do a game jam?
C’mon let’s go and dev!
You don’t make stuff anymore
Come out and code
It’s like you’re AFK!
Actually, no, this is the real LD theme song
http://goo.gl/Wh3AK0
The uploader has not made this video available in your country.
Sorry about that.
Germany saves me once again… lol
I was hoping your video would be this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ1ZOFNBL68
Brilliant.
silver_surfer_bgm_1.wav
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9FImc2LOr8
this is the real game jam music!
To dare is to… uh…
Was snowman even in the slaughter? And now it’s going to be the theme?
Not sure if it was in the slaughter, I think they sometimes smuggle a joke theme into the voting. But it’s VERY unlikely the snowman is going to be the theme in the end. But even if it does make it to #1 by some miracle, would that really be so bad? I can imagine a lot of interesting games and stories which could be told using a snow man theme. Compare that to, say, “you can’t stop”. Yeah…
The odds are actually pretty high for Unicode Snowman… it scored twice as high as the best theme from the previous three rounds. I’ve personally cooled on Snowman but still am cool with Artificial Life; let’s see if enough people do a 180 on Snowman in the final round to let one of the other themes win.
If I remember recent LDs correctly, being in the top spot after rounds 1-4 has historically been a bad predictor for the final theme. It could still happen, but it’s far from certain, and people are actually less likely to vote for a “joke theme” in the final round. Also, there will be more voters coming in who haven’t taken part in rounds 1-4, further thwarting forecasts.
In the end, I think it’s not worth it to obsess over theme prediction (woah, so why am I watching this thread!?)
LD30: 1st top spot won in final
LD29: 2nd top spot won in final (1st top spot: place 10 in final, 2nd top spot: place 8 in final)
LD28: 3rd top spot won in final (1st top spot: place 6 in final, 2nd top spot: place 7 in final)
LD27: 1st top spot won in final
Each time the 1st top spot of round 1-4 won the finals, it had a clear margin in rounds 1-4. Woops.
The good news is that we can already start planning our game around snowman.
Also the snowman character (0x2603) is in Unicode as a symbol for snowy weather (code page here: http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf). So things like “Snowing Bats and Frogs”, where you play a fly trying to escape the falling predators, would be reasonable…
I think the point you are trying to make is anything counts, as long as it has the snowman in it.
@postalrat: Er…I was trying to say that games do NOT have to include a snowman. Even on a totally literal level, “snowy weather” is a valid way to read the character. (And I’m sure we’ll see some very creative interpretations too…)
P.S.: Why won’t it let me reply to your comment? Is there a maximum nesting depth?
Not even snowmen? I would say a unicode game fits the theme still.
So excited for Ludum Dah-ray!!
My favorite keynote so far, love the animation style.
Do you want to build a snowmaaaan~?
… shoot me.
My word please don’t let that nonsense winnn
It doesn’t have to be a snowman.
i think its not fair everybody going to +1 that snowman just because its a snowman
Hope colors win instead of Snowman!
There is only one theme worth voting for!
β for LD 31 Theme!
Any theme can work really. Snowman ftw!
I cannot let that snowman win… I never realized it would make it this far…
If it said “Snowman” instead of a huge β, it’s score would have been A LOT worse, feels like the theme has been rigged..
But the theme ISN’T snowman. It’s that picture, which can have actually have more interpretations.
A picture’s worth a thousand words.
It’s not a picture, its a character. It looks different depending on the font you are using. The snowman you are seeing may be different then the snowman I am seeing. The thing in common is they are both snowman icons.
I’d rather see a limiting theme and hope it generated some creativity from people.
I does seem pretty limiting, but somehow I’ve managed to formulate a design that actually encompasses four of the themes. One being the β (Snowman)
Just an idea but what if we held a competition for redoing the site. Each person would submit there own version then we can vote on it.
Man, this is the best Pre-LD stuff i have personally seen yet. A for once genuinely funny Keynote, a catchy song, and a, in my eyes, properly lighthearted and engaging theme. I mean, β is gonna win, right?
Dont let me down, lads.
Also good job on the Unity thing. I guess they decided to do this for all big Jams now? I know they did the same for that PewDiePie GameJam.
I have registere my trial version for Unity and it works like a charm.
Thank you for the tip and I wish you all the best ++
Great post!! videos got me pumped up!
Great Thanks !
I realy had in mind to get an Unreal Engine Licence to try it soon ! Ludum Dare make it for me !
I’ll not be ready for this ludum dare but maybe the next one. π
(“Final countdown” is not a Europe pun no matter how hard you try :Ε)
and yet, no matter how hard one tries, they cannot escaoe that the Final Countdown is a Europe pun.
Yeah, I have to admit, I voted for the snowman because I thought it would be funny, but now I am having some regrets. I don’t really want to play 5,000 games about either “Do you want to build a snowman?”, or Frosty.
You can still change your votes! #noman
Not so funny now, eh? EH? Damn irresponsible voters.
If the snowman does win, PLEASE convert it to the text “snowman” because that symbol cannot be shown on most devices.
What symbol?
Please no snowman… compared to some of the others on that list, it’s a really shit theme. It’d take a lot of effort and loose interpretation to make something unique out of it.
Wee an Israeli keynote P: !
(pst yotam talk to me)
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