Ludum Dare is a wonderful thing
I’ve talked about it before, and I’ll talk about it again. Ludum Dare is an amazing thing. It’s basically a recurring
(three times per year? Uh. Something like that) competition where you’re supposed to make a game from scratch in 48
hours, and it just happened again this weekend. Everyone starts at the same time when the theme gets announced, and
then you try to make an as complete game as possible over the next two days.
The people who submitted games then
get to vote on all the other games in a variety of categories, and a few weeks later the winners are announced.
I’ve participated several times before with (not sure about the chronological order of these) Breaking the Tower, Bunny Press, Metagun, The Europa Arcology Incident, and Prelude of the Chambered. The first year, I actually played and voted on ALL the other games submitted, but the competition has slowly grown, and this year there has been over seven hundred games made. That is amazing!
This year I made a game called Minicraft. As usual, I had lots of fun, even if I couldn’t really think of a good game that would fit the theme of “alone”.. I ended up making a zelda-ish top down game with crafting influences from Minecraft.
I’ve never actually won Ludum Dare, nor do I think I should, as there are some seriously talented people participating. A big part of the fun is to know other people are struggling just as hard as you do, and that you get to see what everyone else has made after you finish yours. There really is a great sense of community.
You can see all the games here: www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview
Rock Paper Shotgun did a nice article trying to sort out what’s been made this last weekend: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/19/they-are-all-alone-ludum-dare-picks/
