@Mikekasprzak has posted the final 16 themes for Ludum Dare 44. @Rocktavious suggested to brainstorm game ideas for each theme to get our creative juices flowing. Here’s how far we got before the final (actual) theme was posted.
Limited memory (-1)
- You have to rewind physics to win, but how far you can rewind is limited by how far into the game you are.
- Puzzle game where you only can make so many move but they don’t take affect until you lock the moves in
Ridiculously overpowered (-1)
- Frustrating controls where you jump super high and move super fast in a game where you want to do things on a small scale? Sounds frustrating.
Your life is currency (-1)
- Some kind of slavery? Or Farm Animals? Literal Life is Currency. Maybe a card game where you’re trading food, then animals, then actual farms to evetually own the biggest farm with the most life. Ala the Craigslist Paperclip.
Side effects (+1)
- see Contagious and Mutation
Space exploration (-1)
- Oregan Trail in Space (a literal wagon)
Change the genre of a classic video game (+1)
Only one enemy (-1)
- A puzzle game where the enemy mirrors your moves and you have to figure out how to get around it. You can’t fight it directly. Having two players, maybe it moves with you both? First level could be pretty easy with no walls but start adding in walls and making it a maze like thing could make it harder. Top down view.
Risky powerups (+1)
- Every time you take a power up it affects your partner. 40/60 split of negative/positive chances. Can apply this to a lot of types of games.
Shelter (-1)
- Build a shelter for an oncoming storm and see if it holds up! Each level can be a bigger and bigger storm.
Color changes everything (+1)
- Step on a button and the color theme changes to reveal secrets.
Everything has a price (-1)
- To win the game, you or your partner must sacrifice themselves but the other must survive.
- Item shop where you buy your shops items and sell your items and try to make a profit
Contagious (+1)
- Everything you do effects everything else.
- Enemies take on the same things you do?
- You and your partner get the same powerups
Tiny town (+1)
- Sim Ant!
- Local Elections / Trying to become mayor
Mutation (+1)
- Your powerups mutate as you continue through the game, or as you take on other powerups. For good or bad. Example, you take a powerup to get bigger, then you take a powerup to run faster but it makes you even bigger so you cant fit thorough some doorways.
- Your power up mutate your partner. Your power up makes you bigger, they get smaller (or something else random). Should mutate always be bad? Randomly changing the other player could be fun but also annoying. Would need to balance the good and the bad to probbaly mutate in a good way more often than a bad way.
No upgrades, only downgrades (+1)
- Backwards evolution? Devolution? :)
Underground (-1)
- Tetris like game but the opposite. Tiles come from the bottom of the screen and float up. You want to create a seal so the magma doesn’t erupt out of the volcano so you need to fill a certain portion (maybe more each level?) of the gamescreen before the magma rises to that level. Make it Coop by having you both put tiles in alternating so you have to work together but it gives you a bit of time to think of your next move - unless your partner takes that spot!