Thanks so much for asking about struggles because I feel like I have to complain about how much I struggled with Unity.
The last time I used that engine was 6 years ago, and I've tried many engines since, before landing on Godot. Unity, specifically Unity 6.3, because I used to run Unity 5 on a weaker machine, is NOT lightweight! I've made 3D games using Godot on the same potato laptop I used for this jam and let me tell you the stutters and throttling I experienced thanks to Unity are things I would not wish upon the worst of my enemies.
Now that I am done pointlessly hating on Unity, it is time to move on to the fun stuff.
3D Modelling is always fun when working with a team. Simply showing your work to someone else and having that back and forth talk to perfect the idea really serves as a reminder that many of the games we look up to were, in-fact, made by teams of people each with their own thoughts and preferences and lives.
Being at the physical site in person was an amazing experience. I've done a lot of jams before this one but this was my first on-site jam so it was all very new to me. 10 years of game dev and this was my first time meeting game developers irl, it was enough to make an old man cry 🥹
Overall it was a pretty fun experience and, while our game turned out very rough and unpolished, and the creation of it felt like it was more tiring than it needed to be, I came out of the jam feeling weirdly energetic and so so so glad I didn't stop developing games.
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about these random feelings, and I wish everyone all the best with their future endeavors!
I'm off to finish every single game submitted to this jam. (17/48 finished at the time of writing)