A theme would be a motif or special viewpoint of a story. In general a theme directs your thoughts toward an idea. Plants Versus Zombies is a theme around which the games of the same name are created. Galaga is a space shooting game where the theme is loosely Protect the Earth by Shooting Aliens. Angry Birds is just that, a bunch of birds that fly through the air, beating up pigs, trying to restore their eggs.
When it comes to jams like this, the theme will be a little more directed, I think. It will give us an avenue within which we can create a game. Something like Only the Brown Barrels. In this example, your game would include brown barrels in some capacity.
Hope that helps.
Sorry that the whole theme process isn't more clear at the moment! This is the first year that the jam is taking place so not everything has been set in stone yet.
By theme, I'm referring to a central idea that all games in the jam are encouraged to draw from. (Very similar to how Ludum Dare incorporates a theme into its jam).
I'm still mulling over how to select the theme. Ideally, it would be similar to Ludum Dare, where the community submits and votes on themes over a series of rounds.
Right now, I'm now aware of a good tool that allows us to do that while restricting voting to those participating in the jam.
What I may likely end up doing is starting a theme suggestions thread and building a top list from there. Participants could then vote on their favorite from the list and then we would have our theme.
I'm open to suggestions though!
You have the opportunity to choose between two paths. That of having the theme known in advance (and therefore having community input into it), or that of keeping the theme hidden until just before the start time (therefore ensuring all entries are equally fresh and without prior preparation).
Which one better fits your vision for this jam?
So, I've decided to model theme selection after Ludum Dare.
Because itch.io doesn't have a system set up to handle this, I'll be using Google Forms. Each form will be limited to 1 response and will require you to sign into a Google account in order to use it.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
