I loved the set up for this jam. It left it open to be super creative for the designers and as BughuniTeams said, the fact that character investment was part of it pushed me to try and come up with a decent story. Story has never been a focus for me over mechanics and gameplay, but here I focused a lot of my efforts on story. And I discovered how much it adds! I think this is now my favourite game I've made.
I think usually I would be all for being able to update the game after the deadline, however it feels a bit iffy for the people games that were streamed on Wednesday. I think a lot of people will watch the streams and not play the games, meaning if your game was being played on Friday you had a lot more time to polish it. Hopefully you're right and nobody took advantage of this too much. I hope this doesn't come across as moaning, because I'm so grateful to see Kyle play my game and for chat being so kind. I guess I just hope that when the voting is done, it feels like it was fair.
As for resources I agree that as long as the developers are open about what they did and didn't create I think anything is fair game. I totally understand what you are saying Shweep (as I created everything from graphics and programming to music), but I think it being accessible is also important to a jam like this. I was lucky that I had the time to spend every waking second in this when I wasnt working. I understand a lot of people would not have that.
Overall, I absolutely loved this jam. The creations are awesome, the characters that Kyle and Chat made are awesome and the streams were super fun to watch. Would I do another? I dont know because my anxiety and stress levels were through the roof! But by the next one I'll probably just be left with the good memories (like Kyle's live reaction to the end of my game and all chats lovely words). So yeah. I probably will.
Also, to all the people in chat who were saying such nice things about my game, if you read this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It made all thoughs 3am nights worth it.