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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
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.
yes, when video game developers talk about 'games' they generally mean video game. It's a convenient shorthand in their community. Much how when a computer programmer refers to a 'file' they typically mean a 'computer file' rather than a physical one, when an electronic engineer says 'circuit' they mean an electrical circuit rather than a racing circuit.
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.
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