Hello kkairos, all of these goals are very good! Judging by your positive attitude you will be very active in the game dev community. I did a quick look at your games, didn't play any but judging from the art the game will probably look good. Just a reminder, allows have fun. If you are working hard and not having fun then put what you're working on aside for a bit and work on something else.
I just love to see how much I improved, and Jams are a good way to do that. Why MVM in particular? because it is a month long, and it gives me enough time to not only see what I know, but to learn new things.
My goal for -THIS- MVM is to NOT use pixel art. I am going to try to use hand drawn animations (probably no color, just black and white) for all of the art/characters/etc. everything. I have no idea how good it will be, but that is my goal. So the scope of the game will probably be small, with a lot of art packed in
Many things I learned are from accidents. Some things are when I open a project and just go ham to try to do that thing. Art on the other hand is the hardest part for me. Other than the animation process, it is something I struggle with. Exploring hand drawing would be fun. Maybe you could make a Paper background for the black and white so it looks like it's a piece of paper?
I am a pretty big fan of metroidvanias and always wanted to make one. I have 2 decently fleshed out gdds for metroidvanias that i never got to actually build. My latest game, Gold Dash, started as a short metroidvania before pivoting into a fast paced platformer during the game jam as i was running out of time.
Problem is i suck at art. Like, seriously bad. Just look at my games. You can clearly see which ones use external assets and which ones are "drawn" by me. For this jam i'm planning on using Kenney's platformer assets, unless i can't fit into the theme in which case i'll scour OGA for something decent.
