Well, the team and I have been preparing by talking about what we'd roughly like to do. So we're on the same page when it starts, and when we learn the theme the ideas won't go off everywhere like an explosion in a fireworks factory! I've been in enough teams to know that very little can be agreed upon when there's little time for ideas to sink in!

Also, how can I create another Journal? I'd rather not delete my one from doing this last year, but I'd like to do that again.

Also, how can I create another Journal? I'd rather not delete my one from doing this last year, but I'd like to do that again.

Please don't delete it.

Why not just rename your journal to "Jack Oatley's Journal", and post the new contest stuff to the same journal?

I guess I could do something like that. My OCD about keeping things organized, separate and labelled will have to take a hit! :)

Why not just rename your journal to "Jack Oatley's Journal", and post the new contest stuff to the same journal?

I guess I could do something like that. My OCD about keeping things organized, separate and labelled will have to take a hit!

For what it's worth, Servant's suggestion is pretty much what I did, I believe. If you want to separate the two sections, perhaps put a "spacing" post after your last entry, with some basic filler text and a title that clearly indicates its purpose as a divider.

Basically this, it hasn't been a problem in the past with individual file sizes, so I'm not inclined to make a hard rule on it, but if it ever does become a problem, we'll work with it that year, and it'll likely become a hard rule in the future.
as a soft rule, i'll just say try not to go over 250MB.

I'm sorry I didn't reply over the weekend, but thanks for this information.
I hope I'm not the only person who is really, really pumped about this week! I point to this week last year that launched my new business of teaching kids programming and graphic arts through game development. I had never made a game before last year but I placed 5th and I thought ... I can do this.
I have canceled all of my classes, mainly because it will be the first week of public school for all of my students and they act crazy the first week of school, but secondly for this competition.

Wow, it's pretty great to hear what this competition did! i'm glad we could help push in the right direction! =-) Can't wait to see what you can give us this year!

I think I could use a break to work on something small, so I'll give this a go.

If I'm working alone, I can just have the team name be my name, right?

Team: Casey Hardman
Members: Casey Hardman
Twitter: @Casey_Hardman
Tools: Unity, Paint.net, GIMP
Language: C#

Quick question: would posting screenshots and such to Twitter qualify for the 'participation points', or would making more in-depth posts (not 140-character posts) in a dev journal or blog be necessary?

Great to have you! (team name being your name is perfectly fine)
Posting to twitter is absolutely great, and we will be using the hashtag #gdnjam. however to be sure you receive the participation points for posting the screenshot, when you do make a screenshot post, please be sure to drop by the competition thread(NOT THIS THREAD, a new thread created at the start of the competition), and be sure to drop us at the very least the link to your twitter post.

Great to have you! (team name being your name is perfectly fine)
Posting to twitter is absolutely great, and we will be using the hashtag #gdnjam. however to be sure you receive the participation points for posting the screenshot, when you do make a screenshot post, please be sure to drop by the competition thread(NOT THIS THREAD, a new thread created at the start of the competition), and be sure to drop us at the very least the link to your twitter post.

Alright, thanks!

If you aren't sure what the theme will be yet and you're interested in some ideas, I compiled a list of Ludum Dare themes into a simple HTML page you can open in your browser. All 5 rounds for each Ludum Dare from LD 22 to 31 are in it, organized in tables showing the scores people gave them during the voting. There's some simple JS that makes each table fold at the press of a button, and there's a button that gets a random theme from a random table and shows it to you.

I put it together a while ago to help spur on ideas for games.

If you want it for some extra inspiration, I could PM it to you.

Also, how can I create another Journal? I'd rather not delete my one from doing this last year, but I'd like to do that again.

Open the dropdown menu on your name

click on "Manage Journals"

Click on the "Create a Journal" green button

Name your new Journal etc - it will not delete your existing journals and will create a new journal subset for you to post under.

@Stormy: Isn't the option to have multiple journals available only to people with an account of a particular level and above--at the least above the level of standard membership?

@Slicer: Speaking of themes, I'm curious, if I may: How is the theme chosen? Do the judges gather and debate a theme? Is it chosen by your own fiat? Is it picked out of a (presumably metaphorical) hat?

@Slicer: Speaking of themes, I'm curious, if I may: How is the theme chosen? Do the judges gather and debate a theme? Is it chosen by your own fiat? Is it picked out of a (presumably metaphorical) hat?

I gather up a number of potential themes i think fit this contest's style, and then throw them into a program to randomly select one at midnight of the competition.

Fair enough, and thank you for elaborating! ^_^