I went into this jam hoping to win something even though there's no prizes, and I know I probably shouldn't have ^^' I went back and forth from thinking heavily about what I might win, to not caring at all. When the deadline came, I saw how amazing so many of these games were, and I started to feel really bad bc I knew I wasn't going to win x) I mean, what did I expect with no tutorial? that's like bare minimum- but, I did get in the top 50% for novelty and horny so I guess that's something x)
But, aside from that, my favorite thing about this was seeing everything everyone made! It's incredible to see not only how much people can do in a month, but also the variety of creations! There's genres of games in here that I completely forgot existed that I was able to fall back in love with through this jam (Masks Without- silent simple point and click adventure) and totally new experiences I had no idea could be so fun and engaging (The Makeup Exam- typing game but an animated story comic thing too!?). Then there were games like Bramblestone, which are not necessarily super novel, but, the fact that I don't play many games in general really brought to my attention how fun some really common ideas are that I just never interact with x)
I will absolutely be joining the jam again next year, and probably some other jam in a few months. This whole experience makes me really excited to get into game development for real, after years of trying to sculpt Minecraft into my own game. Now I feel like I really have the tools to make any experience I want, I just need more practice more practice more practice!