As a new developer—and someone who just found Trijam—myself, I also felt overwhelmed by the quality of work submitted by other developers. However, I feel like I can address a few things:
First, why did everyone submit late?
Time zone reasons, availability reasons, personal choice…most people chose to spend their 3 hours during a day of their comfort. For me, I did not know the existence of Trijam until 5 hours from submission deadline. Therefore, I planned out my game(which does not count in the time) and spent my 3 hours developing Eat The table—which I believe everyone at the jam can do in 3 hours(if I can), for it is an extremely simple and easy-to-make minigame. Take a better example, Strange Magnets—the winner of the jam—won with a simple mechanic and a great execution, not days of polishing. If you are accusing every single developer on cheating, you have to account for the possibility of that happening first.
Why can other games be done in 3 hours
A game is rated from its mechanics. The games all have a simple mechanic, which allowed them to be done in 3 hours. I didn’t spend a single second polishing my game; however, because of my mechanic, I got placed 15th—which I think I didn’t deserve(I deserved like 23rd).
In conclusion, I believe most of the developers are honest of their time, and the claim should not be generalized to all developers in the jam. It will be nice if you point out specific developers instead of everyone(which made me feel a tinnnnnyy bit attacked).Good luck in the next jam:)