While some people may be able to pull off amazing feats such as polished 3D games during game jams, It is my opinion that a 2D game is better for a game jam simply because you have more time to polish and finish things. Change my mind in the comments and play my game Reflections: https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2022/rate/1549634
I think it depends, if you use free asset packs I do not think any of these is necessarily more difficult than the other, although if you make your assets from scratch 2D is likely easier. 2D also makes it easier to optimize for performance. But 3D also has its advantages, I find it makes level design a bit more intuitive and animations are much easier (you can basically attach an animation to any existing rig, which allows you to reuse animations, whereas with 2D you need spritesheets for each model)
generally, I agree. BUT there's things you can do with 3D physic that are easy to implement and hopefully funny enough for a decent game jam entry.
here is my proof: https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2022/rate/1550807
;-)
Why not both? JK
I think it really depends on what kind of game you are going to do and specialy how skilled you are on both sides.
One major point is how familiar people are with 2D tools against 3D tools. Everyone has used MS Paint one, everyone has heard of photoshop and so on. But when it comes to 3D most people only heard of Blender or Maya which can be kinda intimidating for newcomers. More accessible 3D tools are harder to find, so here are 2 tools for voxel art (think of it as 3D pixel art) that can help MagicaVoxel and Goxel.
With 3D you have all genres to choose from, because you have total freedom of camera movement on all 3 axes: x,y,z.
Camera position is also part of defining the game genre. So the same 3D models can be (re)used in different genres.
Platformer 2D character sprites for instance can not be used in JRPG (RPG Maker) as walking up/down is missing.
In 3D you have better control of lighting and correct shadows.
To be honest, go with the one you feel more comfortable working with or the one you have more experience with. That way you can make the game in the limited timeframe, since you can plan better how you allocate your time in that particular game workflow.
Also, keep in mind that in 2d there's usually a bunch of sprites that require to be made/edited, most likely in a time consuming hand-painted way, while in 3d you can make/edit a pretty decent model with a few clicks in Blender. Once again, it depends on the skillset you have as a developer.
The answer will depend on how many people are working on a single project, what are their skills and knowledge and what tools are in their hands for the Jam.
Both have their PROs and CONs.
2D allows faster implementation of the environment, basic physics and is far easier and faster to produce a good correlation between the gameplay and UI as both uses a similar kind of rendering method.
3D allows faster animations, details' adjustments and allows an easy access to complex physics.
For example, I made a 3D game for the jam : https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2022/rate/1539775
I could have worked on a 2D version of my project, but I would had to put more time in the animations than what I did in 3D. While some part of the game would have been easier to implement in 2D, the perspective of the game would have been affected in a bad way. Ironically, the commercial release I'm currently planning for the project I submitted for this Jam will actually be looking a lot more 2D as I'm not restricted by time anymore.
