Put the Jam target to paper and write three things come to mind when looking at the target. Which of these three things you like best.
Use that thing to make a game and stick with that plan. Even if it fails miserably. You will go through all the motions and have a product at the end. If you don't like it, remember, it was your first time. No first time is perfect...great...or even...okay....
Friday I noticed this Jam. The previous jams I joined in was one on a different site and one GGJ this year, first time ever.
This jam had an awesome easy pitch: Destruction.
I took 'destruction', wrote down: Blow up, Not default, hypercasual.
(Well to be honest, I like to go hypercasual on weekend jams anyway, as they tend to prevent you from going too deep and wide from the start).
I love to take something from a different angle, so my main pitch would be 'not default'. I had guessed (and was shown right), that most would use the 'protagonist' blows the world up.
I wanted something different. The destruction would need to do something different and yet help to get to the goal. So...hypercausal, not default....pitch done... So...explosions are force and force can move the character, so I aimed at that. Simple enough...but...catches are always there....First...10N is too fast to follow and predict if a crate would be present...so basically 9/10 you would end up bottom. Had to slow stuff down...but that shouldn't be too much.
I think it worked out. There is still stuff that can be added, more crates types, powerups for the player-character, more types of diamonds and a 'difficulty-curve' over time (which I am implementing). The game will go to market, but for now I enjoyed this jam.
In case anyone reads this: Thanks for showing all the great stuff I didn't think of and likely will never think of anyway, you rock!