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[man of doom]

Can't say I'm big on the theme. They always put a joke theme in but I guess everybody voted for it this time.

Ah well, still entering.

[Hangedman]

It's just fine. It's open-ended. Just gotta roll with it.
Make a game in which being given one particular thing is pivotal.
Or make a game that has nothing to do with the theme except the name.

[Riley Adams]

Sorta bummed I couldn't do this one (waaaay too much stuff on my plate right now), but I can't say I'd have been a fan of that theme (although that isn't saying much, I think I've complained about the theme on every past LD I've done... I really hated Islands and Discovery, but made top 10 in both...).

[Hempuli‽]

I'm usually ok with vague themes like 'island' and 'exploration', because most of the time I make up my game ideas beforehand, and then just apply the theme to it. This one, on the other hand, was so vague that it didn't really give me any idea what kind of a game would fit it. All it tells is a line of dialogue that you could put into the game, and a really small concept of being alone and having some item/companion, which is what most games do anyway. I'm quite glad there weren't that many Zelda-likes, though.

Hopefully you guys had fun! I definitely did.

[Hangedman]

Real life intervened with a vengeance. So it goes. I'll be on board and rarin' to go for the next one

[LiquidAsh]

Zom-key-bot-calypse (Zombies + Monkeys + Robots) is my entry:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=rate&uid=3415

It's interesting how these generic themes lead me to more cliche game story/premises (without effecting my sense of exploration/innovation in gameplay, fortunately).  The current submission is little more than a proof of concept, but I'm hopeing to get a browser port together and add some additional puzzles/levels soon.
 

[Chris Z]

It seems like the bigger LD gets the more people vote on "safer" generic themes.  I think the new people get intimidated by a lot of the themes and don't want to leave their comfort zone for a 48 hour game.  It's too bad because lately there hasn't been a common thread tying the games together, especially this time.  The only recent non-generic theme I can think of is "Enemies as Weapons".

In any case, here's my entry "Thank You Hobo" that places emphasis on the "take this" part throughout the game:
http://www.roachpuppy.com/ld48-20/

[bluescrn]

It seems like the bigger LD gets the more people vote on "safer" generic themes.  I think the new people get intimidated by a lot of the themes and don't want to leave their comfort zone for a 48 hour game.

Some people want a hard game *design* challenge, and want the harder, more restrictive or experimental themes.

Some people are happy with the game *development* challenge of just making something complete-ish in 48hrs (even if it's fairly uninspired platformer or shmup)

The end result this time, with heavy downvoting of sensible themes by 'both sides', was that a theme from the 'silly themes' list actually won!...

For me it's always been about the development side - I'm an experienced programmer, but a bit weak at the creative and artistic side of things - but like the challenge of completing a project in a weekend.

Anyway, I enjoyed making my platformer-with-grapple-mechanic game - playable here: www.bluescrn.net/ld48_20/WebPlayer.html (and a dev timelapse here:

)

[Chris Z]

Some people are happy with the game *development* challenge of just making something complete-ish in 48hrs (even if it's fairly uninspired platformer or shmup)

This is a very good point and ultimately why I made my peace with LD and didn't ragequit upon hearing the theme announcement like I did a couple times before.  I prefer the design challenge, but the development part is too fun and a challenge regardless of the theme.  Still, it'd be cool to see all the games be tied together.

[Nugsy]

I climbed atop Ludum Rock for a while and meditated, then it struck me that i was being a whiney bitch so i made a game.

I prefer the game i made over both of my previous LD entries, even though it took less time than both of the others.

Ludum Rock showed me the way forward.

[Blodyavenger]

Theme was simple, that's true but in the same time entries with the unique gameplay and idea will rank higher than others. There are quite some people that used "Zelda" reference in their submissions but I think that's not unique and I won't rank that idea too high.

Anyway, here is my Ludum Dare entry

[ VIEW ENTRY | DOWNLOAD GAME |

]

Young courier gets a letter from an old man who wants it delived to the
keeper of the Crypts saying "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!" and
he gives magic torch to the courier.
Help him deliver the letter!

The whole idea was based on torch and dark places. Instead of killing or something else you simply have torch and it's "flame bar". Flame bar and light radius are getting lower but you can pick coal and get back some flame. You reflect spiders away from you but there are more twisted beings around who are not afraid of flame.

[PoV]

Ludum Rock showed me the way forward.

I'm not sure what the right word for me is (biased?), but even though I am a technical dude, I thought it was still a good theme.  Despite being one of the oldest gaming memes, it conceptually has an extremely broad possibility space.  The key points were "Danger" and "This", the thing to assist with danger.  "Alone" wasn't even a restriction of the theme, just a mood point or emphasis on the importance of "This" (the solution).  The theme could have alternatively been titled "Secret Weapon", "Swiss Army Knife", or "MacGuyver", it's all about how you want to look at it.  I'm glad it wasn't though, since we got games about Life Insurance and Jock-straps as a result.

[StephenM3]

This was my first Ludum Dare, and I love the design challenge aspect with unusual themes. It's largely the lure Ludum Dare, for me.

I carried that attitude to this theme, though: it's a challenge to creatively interpret a theme that might encourage uncreativity.  "Dangerous to go alone aspect" can apply to any single player game with a lose condition, "take this" can apply to any game with an ability explained with an item.  

Some entries that did creative interpretations (and there were so many great entries) focused on the "go alone" aspect, but provided an alternative to doing so.  It's an interesting contrast between "danger alone, less danger with friends".

I tried the idea that you are why it's dangerous to go alone... but your targets travel in groups. You need to split them up before attacking, using a system of traps. (And then you "take" them to use as fuel in a mysterious capital-f Furnace, which is meaningless story BS I planted solely as an excuse to include the word "take.")
It turned into a kind of stealth game with puzzle elements, which is ABSOLUTELY nothing I would have expected myself to be making.  This means the theme really did its job!

Ludum Dare was excellent! So much fun, such an intense challenge. I eagerly await the next time I can participate.

[Chris Z]

Despite being one of the oldest gaming memes, it conceptually has an extremely broad possibility space.  

But that broad possibility space is a negative in my opinion.  I like the cohesion that some of the more narrow themes bring across all of the games while they all still have varied gameplay.  Like I mentioned on the blog, it also makes it very difficult to come up with a game in a short period of time when there is almost no focus and you have to draw from the set of every game imaginable.  I can't help but think (even if it's a bit cynical) that people vote for the more general themes because they can apply it to some idea they already had rather than come up with something on the spot for a narrow theme.  Hell, there have been a few entries that I've rated so far that clearly use their idea for some of the themes that didn't win (like "broken physics" and some others) and applied it to this one.  A lot of people tacked on some dialog box with the "take this" line once in the beginning and never revisited the theme in the gameplay.  Quite a few were still good games, but that kind of thing kind of misses the point of having a theme to begin with.

This is just one facet of the competition though and I still had a blast participating.  It won't stop me from joining in, it's just my only gripe of the recent LDs.

I carried that attitude to this theme, though: it's a challenge to creatively interpret a theme that might encourage uncreativity.

Absolutely, I tried my best to approach it this way.  That and the development challenge is still the biggest part of why LD is so fun.  But I also enjoy the challenge of doing something interesting with a focused theme since I tend to work better with more constraints.  Having such a large set of possible games due to a generic theme is just overwhelming for me.  Like I said, having that cohesion across all the games is pretty neat too.

[Fifth]

This was the second Ludum Dare that I participated in, it being the second that lined up well with my free time, and that I learned about before it was too late.

Wasn't too fond of the theme.  Still had fun.
Ended up making something unextraordinary.

I'll never get the hang of the community aspect, though.

[Zaphos]

I liked your entry, Fifth, it was a funny use of the theme

[Fifth]

Aw, thanks!

[pgil]

I'll never get the hang of the community aspect, though.

Yeah, I never really was interested in blogging about my progress. Every break I took from working on my game I wanted to get the fuck away from the computer. 

(and yet, I post here when I could be working on shit....)

[Blodyavenger]

Yeah, I agree it's kinda hard to do everything in those 48 hours but community is important part of the game developing because without it, you get less players for sure. So, writing blog posts makes your game better known and people will more likely try it out.