THE THEME IS ANNOUNCED! Scroll all the way down to see it, but remember: your 72-hour window begins when you see it!

The Ludum Dare 55 Jam category had two tabletop games in the top 11 for Innovation: Summoning Detective was #1 and The Summoned (my game) was #11. Summoning Detective almost cracked the top 100 overall, placing 109th out of 1,679 entries, placing it in the top 6.5%!

A lot of the comments on my tabletop games in the past, and that I saw on Summoning Detective, were happy to see a tabletop game in the jam. So, to combine two of my favorite things (tabletop games and Ludum Dare), let's get more tabletop creators into future Ludum Dare jams!

To be clear, when I mention "tabletop games" throughout this post, I'm referring to ANALOG tabletop games: games where you have to provide your own dice, tokens, or whatever else while potentially printing things. You're more than welcome to create digital tabletop games for Ludum Dare, including using something like Screentop.gg to allow people to play your game digitally, but this jam is focused entirely on analog games. If you can master making the game in 72 hours, maybe your next goal can be to digitally create it in 72 hours too!

What is Ludum Praxi?

Using a web translator, Ludum Dare means "Game to Give." So I titled this jam Ludum Praxi: "Game Practice." The whole premise here is that we're practicing for Ludum Dare by doing a variation of it.

For Ludum Dare, tabletop games fall into the "jam" category, which means you have 72 hours from the announcement of the theme to create something. However, this isn't the easiest for people with busy lives: you may work over the weekend, or that might be when you have your kids. Maybe you can only run errands over the weekend. There are a zillion valid reasons why the weekend of Ludum Dare might not work for you.

As such, Ludum Praxi runs for two weeks. HOWEVER, you MUST create your game within a 72-hour window. This time starts as soon as you see the winning theme, so make sure you don't look at it before you're ready to start. This window is also running nonstop: you can't work on day one and two, then take a couple of days off and use the third day later. Eating, sleeping, thinking, working, relaxing, and everything else eat into your time.

Once the time ends, you have one additional "submission hour" to get it uploaded here to Itch. Feel free to spiffy the page up after this hour if you'd like, but you cannot edit your game after this period. You can, however, make a "post-jam" edition with additional edits. Make sure it's clear that it wasn't made within 72 hours by calling it a "post-jam" edition or "72+ hours" or whatever. :D An example of this is on my Itch page for The Summoned, or you can browse other Ludum Dare 55 entries here on Itch and see how they handled it. There are sooooooooooooo many good games in there!

You can enter Ludum Praxi as many times as you want. If you decide to enter an additional game, you can take as long as you want before starting an additional game, but then you should use a random generator to get one of the other themes from the final voting round so you don't know which theme you'll get. If you hate the theme that won, or you accidentally saw the theme before you were ready to begin, you can do this too.

Ratings/Comments

Ludum Dare is a ranked jam. You get a few weeks after the jam ends to vote for others, get votes yourself, and then see your game's ranking and overall ratings. Literally thousands of people enter Ludum Dare multiple times a year, though, and I'd be shocked if more than a handful enter a game here. This would make ratings awful: a single low rating will never be brought back up by good ones, and will just lead to feeling bad. Plus, if 3 people enter and you're 3rd place, that's not a good feeling and would be inaccurate: all 3 games might be great! 

With that said, I highly encourage people to comment on each other's games in a kind, uplifting tone. Critical criticism has a place, and if people ask for it then cool, but we foster a more encouraging, friendly tone in our community.

As a sort of birthday gift to myself, this first jam begins the day after my birthday: June 16th. It'll then run through June 30th, two weeks. And if you can't make it this time, that's fine! I plan to run at least two more before October 4th (Ludum Dare 56).

The Theme

Ludum Dare has an awesome system for themes where anyone can submit any two themes they want, and then there's a series of rounds where themes are eliminated until a final round of voting decides the winning theme.

In doing my best to emulate this manually, there will be three rounds of theme selection:

1. First, people can submit as many themes as they'd like in this Google form. I've also submitted several of my favorite previous themes and themes that didn't make it into the jam. This is running from May 22nd through June 2nd.
2. Second, people will vote on which themes they want to see win. You can vote for as many as you want. This will run from June 2nd - June 9th.
3. Finally, the top themes will be put into a final round of voting. I'll do my best to emulate Ludum Dare here and include 10 themes; it's a great number of themes to ponder over while also being uncertain which will win. This round of voting will run from June 9th - June 16th (when the jam begins).

I will send emails to anyone who has joined the jam when these things happen, as well as once the theme is announced (but not what the theme is) and when the next jam launches. If you don't want these, you can click "unsubscribe" in the email.

Remember: once you see the theme, your 72-hour window starts, so be careful not to look at the theme before you're ready to start creating. To make it as easy to avoid seeing before you're ready, I'm ONLY going to put the theme below:

THEME:  I'm actually moving the announced theme all the way to the bottom so no one accidentally sees it

Quick Facts

• Your creation must be an analog tabletop game (TTRPGs included)
• Your creation must be created during the jam period
• You have 72 hours from when you see the winning theme above to create your game. You then have one additional hour to get the game on Itch
  • As an exception, you can randomly pick one of the top 10 jam themes yourself if you hate the theme, want to make an additional game, and/or accidentally see the theme before you're ready
• You cannot update your jam edition after the 72 hours. You can create a separate version with additional updates, though.
• Feel encouraged to comment (with a kind, uplifting tone) on other games entered. Use the "compliment sandwich": one positive specific, followed by things that could be improved (said in a kind way), then one positive specific. For example:
  • "You did an amazing job with the rules! I was able to understand the game very quickly and dove in with excitement. While playing, I stumbled a little over the upkeep, though; it felt like a lot of the game was updating different game states. But I had a lot of fun overall and wanted to play again!"

Our Community

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here in the Community section (it's like a forum). Or, join our Discord server! It's 100% unnecessary for the jam, but it's a great way to keep up-to-date on future jams, chat with other creators, and get notified when we release new games (they're always free or include community copies when they first come out).

The Theme Is Below

THEME: Your Health Bar Is More than a Health Bar