We are still in the thick of it, IMO, so I may have more suggestions, but these have jumped out at me so far.
- Most importantly, the overall idea (provided assets) and timeline (2 weeks over holiday) were SPOT ON. I have 2 young kids and am busy at work, so I don't jam as much as I want (hard to tell my wife I'm gonna hole up all weekend and code), so I really loved getting a jump start and having 2 weeks.
- Sprites. I overall liked the sprites provided, but I thought a lot of them were a little too gimicky with pal() switches. I don't think I've seen a single game implement the spinny wheel or the animated character. I think they are cool ways to use pico8, but they kind of pigeon-hole how they are meant to be used.
- Sprites again. This is a personal preference, but I thought a lot of them were a little too detailed for their own good, like the insect or ninjoe. I kind of get a headache looking at Ninjoe and how much subtle detail is crammed into 8x8.
- One more on sprites. I would have preferred 4 characters with 6-8 frames each than Ninjoe having so many frames. I think variety is better than depth. However, i can also hear the argument that having 1 major character unifies the jam a bit. I dunno, this is all opinion.
- Themes. I don't think we need them. The mystery and the toybox were enough.
- In contrast to comments above, i liked having the font (AND THE FUNCTIONS TO USE THEM!!!) I thought this unified the games a bit visually.
- Music. I think it was great, but everyone more or less just used it as is. If someone could write functions in the democart on how to customize music (slow down, transpose, remove channels, etc), that could inspire more innovation.
- Max's mystery. This is definitely my opnion - I liked it, but I did not have enough time to make my game and work on it. I still haven't solved anything. I'm not crazy about the idea of locking assets behind it. My hot take is that the mystery is good, but I would hide something else besides assets behind the solution.
Left field suggestions/ thoughts:
- It was a sort-of-smallish crowd who jammed - it would be fun to do a community event of some sort. A stream, a chat? 2 weeks allows for multiple chances.
- I think the jam should get opened outside pico-8, unless there are reasons against it I am not privy to. If there were a community dropbox of sorts where volunteers could port the assets (to tic80 for eg) that would be cool. This is harder for sfx and music, but im not crazy about locking a jam behind closed source SW.
Lastly - thanks, Tom, for liking stuff on Twitter and being present on itch and the BBS. it is very validating to have someone like you comment on something.
Thanks for organizing! I loved it! I love creating and I need a kick to do it sometimes.
-PB