Notch Completes Ludum Dare Again

2022-10-15

Notch just completed the Ludum Dare challenge for the sixth time. Ludum Dare is a three times yearly competition for game developers where a theme is announced, and the contestants are given 48 hours to draft, design and program a video game.

People who have submitted video games then vote on other games. Winners are announced a couple weeks after the votes have been cast. The competition has grown immensely in the past few years. Notch recalled the first time he participated in the competition he voted on every single game that was submitted. But now that seven hundred games are being submitted, voting on every game is something that is just not possible to do.

The theme for this year was “alone”. The game Notch made was called Minicraft, which is basically just a Minecraft clone (even Notch is making them). Notch describes the game as a “zelda-ish top down game with crafting influences from Minecraft”. Games that Notch has made before, which are all programmed in Java, include Bunny Press, Metagun, The Europa Arcology Incident, Breaking the Tower and Prelude of the Chambered. All of these games, including Minifcraft, are available for free. For a full list, visit Notch's tumblr blog, “The Word of Notch”.