The main thing to keep in mind that Trijam was designed for improving your skills and do regular, quick iterations. There are many benefits that come with that, but you can use all the work you have done before, you can use 3rd party assets, etc. 3 hour challenge is for executing the project you have planned. You can plan as much as you'd like before the jam. That's another thing - you develop planning skills and then see if you can scope the project properly. And also, you can go over the 3 hours. It's mostly just a challenge, but to have at least some motivation to beat the challenge, only games that are made within 3 hours can go into hall of fame if they win. Otherwise, you can spend all the time you'd like, not a problem to submit a game. Actually, it would be better to submit a game that you have made in 10 hours than not to submit at all.
When these questions arise, we always go back to basics, why we started Trijam - to practice gamedev, prototype quickly, test ideas and do it regularly to improve! If you feel like using AI assets will help you improve, you should be able to practice using it! :)
Grisgram gave a really good answer! But usually preparation is more like pre-production. You might as well build the game before to understand your workflow and then do the production as part of Trijam. The point of Trijam is to improve planning, focusing and execution under time constraints. It's surprising how much can be done in 3 hours when you know what and how you have to do!
I'm happy to announce that you can now compete for a prize in Trijam!
Trijam has teamed up with Latvian Game Developer Association and they will be providing Steam keys to games made by Latvian game developers till the end of 2022!
Remember that the goal of Trijam is to practice game development and improve your skills. The rest is just for a little bit of incentive to get you working! :)
The incentive to cheat is quite weak. The jam takes place every week and the value of winning one isn't that high. If you would look at the hall of fame, the names change quite a bit, so there doesn't seem to be anyone who is going out of their way to keep winning at all cost. Last year we had a rating "time", if developed within 3 hours, you'd get 5 stars, more time, lower rating. This imho was a good system, but sometimes people would rate games made in less than 3 hours with less than 5 stars, which was confusing and even upsetting to some developers. So instead, this year we went back to the original system that we had at the start. We will do a survey closer to the end of the year to see if the community is happy with this system to determine how we should go forward like we did last year (people voted for the current way of choosing the winner). Overall, the biggest winners are those who focus on their craft and improve as developers. You can see that looking at devs who participate regularly and how much their work improves! :)
If you have suggestions how to improve the jam you are more than welcome to share your ideas!
It's all ok, of course you can take breaks, you can work on your game 1 hour, then another 1 hour the next day and even do a late submission. The focus of the jam is on self development, the guidelines and the 3 hour challenge are there to motivate yourself! :)
