3D for a game jam is always a bold choice I feel. But I always think the point of a game jam is to reach the finish line with something you could submit, whether inside or outside the timeline, and clearly you reached that point so I think that's still worth commending.
Most people never finish their ideas. The GMTK game jam stats prove this - 37,000 joined but only ~10,000 submitted (so 1 in 3-4 approximately). Even this jam has that, 200 joined but 40 entries (so approximately 1 in 5).
Depends, I have a lot of Synty and other 3D assets so I don't have to also stress about making assets, but only focus on scripting and pluging whatever I can on Unity. Sure, finishing an idea would be nice, but at best I wanted to submit a viable game loop, and I was at level design part for 3 days unable to even focus a bit on it. Thank, proud of it.
Fair play to you; designing the core game loop is the hardest part and often greatly overlooked, so merely wanting to get stuck into that aspect is a really positive sign.
I've experienced the same myself; in my first ever game jam (GMTK 2024), I abandoned my idea at the halfway stage because it was too technically challenging and didn't even promise to be fun at the end of it. But I didn't abandon the jam; I went on to submit another game made in half the time haha.
Keep entering game jams, they really are great learning experiences. Best of luck!
