Thanks Andrew - those are good points. We'll ensure that there are reminders up to the deadline, and at the other side. We are, of course, happy to extend benefit of the doubt in genuine cases of oversight or misunderstanding; we're not going to rule out someone's hard work just because they forgot to make their game public within a few hours of the deadline.
Thanks again, Chris! I always worry I'm nitpicking, and I figured that you and fos probably had a general "we don't want to use the rules to exclude someone" philosophy, so I'm grateful to be able to sort out my questions here.
I have to admit I'm acutely aware/worried of what can go wrong, and I suspect others will be glad to know you guys have some flexibility in the event of some weird case popping up. It really helps to know you all considered it in advance, so during crunch time there is one less thing to worry about.