I'm seeing all the submissions and I'm feeling a bit bad/sad cause I want to try everything and give everything submitted a fair shot. I calculated that if I gave every game here so far at least five minutes of time (based on my game taking about that long to complete). It would take nearly 12 hours. and there are three days to rate things.

This is my first jam and I want to be a good participant, so how does everyone choose what other submissions to give their time to?
Do you try to give everything just a little bit and perhaps see what grabs you? Veto certain things based on immediate factors? pick things that stand out in their info page or thumbnail? or some other strategy? 

Thanks for your time and thoughts!

Last jam, I started by playing whatever caught my eye and after that went for the ones with least votes, so that every game is played. 

You can also check the livestreams done by our hosts. See if there is something you like and play that.

I also just noticed there is a "submissions in need of ratings" button, in the submission list, which is a good way to see unrated games

Idk but I'll definitely play your game now

Sort by most karma. To my knowledge, it shows submissions, whose authors are the most active in voting (or community in general, not sure). Which is a great way to reward those who participate actively.

My intention is to play and rate as many games as possible, hopefully the entire submission list but that might be a stretch.

i personally focused on rating games just in the ‘Submissions in need of ratings’ list. i can’t rate much since there’s so many games but so few time, so i decided to rate just the games that need ratings the most.