Win: First time I made a game with just mouse controls, all my other jams have had keyboard or controller support.
Lose: I wasn't able to work on it as much as I wanted.  The last few days I've been spending time with my family so I had to submit something that had a bunch of features missing that I wanted to include.
But I'm happy I finished.

This was my first jam, and I had a blast.

Losses:

• No power ups (this was how I wanted to tie in the theme)
• Single enemy type
• No spite animations / incomplete art set

Wins:

• Became familiar with Godot
• Implemented controller support
• Created new art assets
• Made a polished itch.io page (in my opinion)

My Wins

• Finding a collaborator that appreciates games the way that I do. He also fills in for skills I lack and vice versa
• Establishing the confidence to push myself to the limit of what I know to make the best game possible

Losses

• I should have developed the game in Unity URP instead of HDRP. Using HDRP limits the amount of people who can play the game on browsers and mobile. 

Wins:

• Participated in my first game jam!
• Made a working game!
• Created animations I like!
• Learned how gamejams work!
• Experienced time pressure in the context of game development!

Losses:

• Thrown together level at the last minute because I spent too much time on the player
• Wasn't able to make as much as I wanted to since I started late

Wins: First time EVER making a 3D game and first time using shaders. Also, I was SO busy these 10 days that submitting a stylized and interesting product is something I'm really proud of.

Losses: Majority of the story done between 11pm and 4am, so it's kind of tacky, as is the final scene which I really wanted to hit hard. Also, I couldn't implement as much horror as I originally wanted.

Wins:

1. First game jam.
2. Limited scoping.
3. Launch first game on itch.io.
4. Mostly positive feedback.

Learns:

1. Get better at aesthetics, art, fonts, background, colors. I picked what was easily available.
2. Get better in music. I picked what was easily available.
3. Too limited scoping. I could have added more mechanics, or polish, or a story element.
4. Need to learn how to keep players wanting to play more / complete the game.

The biggest win is that we created our first-ever game from scratch in just 10 days, and it still has a full game loop. It has a beginning, and it has an end.

As for the losses: hours of good sleep! :D

Win:
- I've never done a game like the one I made ever, and I'm really happy with how it came out. Currently getting rave comments, so major win (and adding a new genre to my toolkit).

Loss:
- Due to making it a web build I had to stick to Compatibility renderer in Godot and lost fidelity and quality due to dropping Forward+. :(

My biggest wins: 

• Getting to see everyone else's games! There are some amazing games, and it's been eye opening to see all the different game types and levels of polish.
• I was able to correctly scope my game.
• I discovered the art style I plan to use on future games because it's so simple.
• I made a game in my first ever game jam, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out
• Making new friends

My biggest losses:

• The type of game I was making has a specific type of playstyle apparently and I did not use it
• I wanted to use SVG's of Kanji so that as puzzles got solved it would draw out the actual character, but I ran out of time
• On a sillier note, does sleep count? Cause that was probably my biggest loss :D

For me my biggest win was sticking with GDQuest over the last two months and actually submitting a working game to this game jam.  My first! It feels great!

Wins:

• I've been tinkering with games since I was a kid, but this is the first time I actually finished a game, even if it's tiny.
• I love the feel of the main mechanic I came up with. I spent hours tuning it, and it feels organic and fun.
• I didn't know anything about shaders, but I didn't let that stop me, and it resulted in responsive-feeling graphics that I'm really happy with.
• I learned a lot about Godot

Losses:

• Now that it's "done," I'm seeing all of the things that I didn't do but really should have.
• Some of the comments make it clear that I needed some sort of tutorial or instructions to make it clear how the game is supposed be played. It seemed obvious to me, but, y'know, I wrote it. A little tutorial NPC ship showing you how you're meant to fly is on top of my "should have added" list.
• I really wish I had taken the time to add some basic music and sounds; it would really have helped.

Wins:

• Another project under my belt. This is my 3rd jam and 3rd 'finished' project. I find it very difficult to make things outside of jams.
• Getting more comfortable with Godot and learned a lot of new things with this project, like how to use tileset custom data layers.
• Currently enjoying playing everyone else's games.

Losses:

• Time management and planning! I was looking up free sound effect packs like 6 hours before the submission deadline.

Wins:

• Developed a super sick movement system I can use in future projects.
• Learned an absolute ton about UI.
• Learned a lot about Game Jams, Itch.io, and Exporting games from Godot.
• Learning from other devs by playing their games and reading their experiences.

Loses: 

• Ended up working solo instead of with one of my collaborators so I think overall it was less fun because of that.
• Would've loved to add more content but my schedule didn't give me enough time.

my 3d jam too

wins:

• didn’t run into any significant issues with builds or planned mechanic compared to previous jams
• didn’t waste time on trying something that wouldn’t work
• made html5 game despite using Unreal Engine (used old version, but it wasn’t as bad)

loses:

• couldn’t use any assets because i need more space on my pc & limits of HTML5 with my chosen engine
• time management is as usual a problem, but mainly because health issues.
• the level in the game is actually tutorial i did for the player, not planned levels

it was overall quite successful, i have a lot of jamming experience, so many overlooked issues from previous jams were avoided this time. I didn’t plan too much and quickly came up with idea/minimum requirement for the finished game.

Wins:

First time making something I published myself since I switched from godot to unreal. It's been tutorials and course projects till thus point. Hard to know how much you've learned without doing so thing yourself from scratch

First time doing a 3d project

First time making any game where you don't control a player character 

First time making a project that is not in a 2d perspective

I feel like this is the most visually impressive of all my work yet (I tribute this to unreal lighting and the kaykit assets, but am happy to leverage both) 

Losses:

I made a gameplay loop that isn't fun. I suspected it myself and decided to use the game jam as a chance to see if other people would find the hidden joy in it. They did not

WINS

1. Completed core mechanics
2.  Dabbled in pixel art, rather than my usual 2.5D approach.
3. Lot of reinforcement of programming patterns (observer, pooling etc)
4. Doing everything (except SFX, even then used Audacity to mod the standard clips)
5. Had a ton of fun.

LOSSES

1. Nowhere near enough time spent playing testing. Would have tuned the game better.

2. Ran out of time to add a feature that would make the game much easier to play. Took me 15min to add to my own build, but is definitely outside of what you would call bug fix. 

3. Lack of polish, again time constraints.

Still main thing was the enjoyment in pulling it all together.

Wins: 

• Made a great story
• Was able to mix different game mechanics without overcomplicating anything
• Was able to test my game to make sure no bugs there  are in the game

Loss:

Completely ignored small font size in my game and now everyone is having problems in reading.