Inspired by Bright's introduction post, I was curious how everyone felt about how they did. Specifically,
1. How much time did you spend creating your game/games?
2. Was there anything useful you learned in developing your games.
3. What challenges did you face while making the game/games?
4. Finally, feel free to recommend either a game that you really like, is underrated, or has a cool premise/mechanics.

I'll start.
1. I spent about 3-4 days since I only found the jam 6 days before the end. I created 2 in that time span.
2. Make sure you consider how strong your colors are and how readable your text is. It will prevent eyestrains and confusion.
3. My main challenge was fitting everything into one page. Sometimes, I had too much. At some point, my wording could be too convoluted. Other times, I feel like I used too many words to explain simple concepts
4. I can recommend Loco-Motion as an underrated game. It's pretty simple and quick to play, but the possible expansion and journaling capabilities sells it for me.

1. I spent about 3 days making my game, spending a few hours per day. I think it was around 4-6 hours in total
2. It’s important for mechanics to lead in the same direction, and enable the kind of play you want to encourage
3. for me, understanding how the game’s mechanics interact with each other was difficult. I had a hard time working out what playing the game would actually be like
4. my favourite submission from this jam is Five Tiny Gifts, I really admire how creative it is

1. About twenty hours over three days and two games.

2. Given I'd never made a physical-game before, I learned I can actually make one :). In addition, I learned that you need to keep the calculations simple when there isn't  a computer to do them for the player.

3. Fitting it all on one page. Definitely. I would have liked to pack in more Gobby-lore.

4. Everyone should at least read Grubby Grubby Goblins. Very fun.

1. Not sure how many hours but my game took around 6 days including creating the artwork. It took longer before I put it up though as I wanted to test it out with some people first. Highly recommend doing that if you have the time!

2. I learned to simplify and cull mechanics which are interesting but not necessary. Keeping the game on theme was my top priority.

3. I found layout the hardest. Fitting all the information I needed on one page was not a problem but weird gaps, choice of colours and font etc. took me a very long time.

4. Everyone should check out Cave Man in a Strange Land- it's simple, thematic and fun!

1. I spent about a day designing the first iteration of A Perfect Rock, followed by a day of post-feedback adjustments, and a day of itch page/printer-friendly/asset design. 
2. I learned to "listen to the feedback that isn't specifically stated." For example, one of my playtesters gave great written feedback, but in passing conversation after they mentioned: "we didn't know when to change the expedition leader, so we did X instead." I adjusted the flow to make that part more clear, but I wouldn't have caught it had I only focused on their written feedback, and not the conversation afterwards.
3. The biggest challenge was reducing the word count and making each sentence efficient and impactful. It's hard to make things shorter!
4. There are so many great submissions, but Drifts inspired some of my layout design, and Honey i made me smile while reading it.

First off, thank you so much for making this post, I think this is a great idea to help people reflect on the event as a whole.

1. How much time did you spend creating your game/games?

I’m not entirely sure how much time I put into this game. I was kicking around the idea for a little while at least. I think as a ballpark estimate I spent 20-25 hours over the course of several weeks with the idea and creation of the project. I have a difficult time keeping track of time spent on anything, so rough numbers are all I can really give. If I had to break it down it would probably be 

~4-5h Art & Design

~6-8h Story & Theme

~10-12h Mechanics

2. Was there anything useful you learned in developing your games?

Absolutely! I realized here that a design document would have made my life a whole lot easier for keeping track of things. However, keeping a GoogleDoc of my notes and ideas was useful. It gave me a single space to throw everything which I could draw from later in my final product.

3. What challenges did you face while making the game/games?

The biggest challenge for me this time around was overcoming how I felt about the entire process. Thoughts of not being good enough and the thought that my game would be entirely unplayable garbage were a constant cloud above me. God helped me through though. Now I have a real game in my portfolio! I’m so excited to continue making things like this in the future. 

4. Finally, feel free to recommend either a game that you really like, is underrated, or has a cool premise/mechanics. There are so many games to choose from and they all seem so intriguing to me! The first one I thought of came from the first person who commented on my post, The Ravensridge Press’ addition to the jam TCP Foundation looks incredible, I love the idea of taking your phone and making an SCP-like anomaly with friends. I just love the shared storytelling opportunities this game provides. This is just one of the several that I have open in my tabs.

1. I spent a good couple of days coming up with the concept for HAWKER and then kept iterating on the rules again and again. I tried to focus on getting the writing done before the art. I would say I spent maybe 5-6 days overall working on the game. I continued to work on it more as feedback rolled in, especially regarding rules, printer-friendly design & such.

2. I think the biggest thing I learned was that the rules as written and the rules as intended are two very different things. I could write out as many rules as I wanted explaining how something works, but I had to ensure that there weren't things I was just leaving in as assumptions hoping that others would just understand. 

3. Creating something that fits into the layout I created and still contains all the mechanics and rules that I want to fit. Font & Type size played a huge role. 

4. Very hard to pick, but One of my favourite games to play was Grubby Grubby Goblins, I had such a blast with it. Redshift Blueshift Generations really intrigued me with its use of hexflowers.

1. This will surprise some, but I spent about 3 weeks creating my game. And that's without brainstorming. I set my scrivener document with tasks of exactly what I needed to do and kept that updated. I didn't work on the game everyday, making sure to take breaks and most doing of the finalizing on the weekends. I wanted to release it much earlier but I forced myself to take my time and make everything just the way I needed it to be. Slow and Steady for the race.

2. I had to learn quite a bit about pamphlets and mock-ups (I'd never used a mock-up before. In fact, I didn't know that what they were called). I also think I learned a bit about cutting things. I left content out of the game, and ironically I think that content would only have given it more dimension. 

3. I hate typography SO much, lol. But I had a specific vision in mind for the logo lettering that I couldn't just download my way out of - which forced me to do something that ended up for the better. That's in terms of promotion and marketing, which I also put a lot of work into, and in a way it paid off. I also learned that the pamphlet format comes with it's own pitfalls. It's visually gripping but also LIMITING. Still, I really wanted to try it. So I really challenged myself for this one and the results were good! All we can do is learn from the process and take what we can from it. 

4. I spent a bit of time before and after submitting my entry ensuring I commented on as many projects as I could that "spoke to me". And especially if I could say something nice or constructive - if all I had were criticisms or what I had to say felt to critical then I erased what I'd written and moved on. So, I don't want to shout out a game - I want to shout out the other creators at there who took the time to do the same, not just for me, but for other participants as well. You make jams like this such a welcoming and wonderful experience and it was an absolute pleasure to get your responses back. You guys rock!

I was hoping one of these would show up!

1. I ended up getting what I submitted done from concept to completion in about 6 hours. My initial idea was too ambitious and rather than changing course until the very end I just didn't get much work done on it the entire jam

2. I think, especially for a one pager, working on the page rather than a design document helped me understand the vibe and scope of what I was going for a lot better.

3.  Learning Scribus provided a lot of small challenges but nothing a google search or revert to last save couldn't fix. Otherwise, I think wording everything so that it was concise enough to still fit on the page while still providing all the information you needed to understand it had me rewriting sections again and again. 

4. Honestly, I was waiting to dive into everyone's submissions until the jam was over, but of the few did I did look at near the start, Precious Cargoes had a really nice presentation and fun idea.

1. How much time did you spend creating your game/games?

A month from brainstorming to execution. 

2. Was there anything useful you learned in developing your games.

This was my first game and it was eye-opening to take one to finish. Despite being a one page hack it still took hours to develop. I did very simple illustrations due to the time crunch--I had a kiddo sick with RSV all week so I didn't have as much time as I had expected and wanted to finish anyway.  

I was using the jam to talk with my kiddo about game design. I tried to walk them through their own, next year I want to work on them earlier with an obvious timeline of checkpoints so we can both submit something. I feel like one page is very approachable.  My husband made one too!

3. What challenges did you face while making the game/games?

I also learned that in Affinity Publisher every time you compress a PDF that it's not enough to check the master file you also need to check the final because the compression can cause weird. artifacting. I had to save mine pre-rendered in order for it to show the font correctly. Unfortunately I figured this out only after there were a couple of downloads!

4. Finally, feel free to recommend either a game that you really like, is underrated, or has a cool premise/mechanics.

I loved the use of the rondel mechanic in auctoratis plus upgrading the mechs:

https://m-allen-hall.itch.io/auctoratus

I also enjoyed my husband's concept telling the story of people who didn't make it home after a journey. It's bare bones but the game is sound for those that love building backstory:

https://coureton.itch.io/the-long-way-home

1. A made two games for the jam, both took about a weekend to finish. Runner for Love took more hours because I wanted to give it proper cyberpunk aesthetics and that took time. I Served a Crazy Emperor was easier, basically just some brushing up on my history and finding suitable mechanic.

2. I think I really need to decide what do I want something to look like before I start playing with graphic side of the thing. I spent much time redoing elements I've already done.

3. Deciding for simple mechanics is not easy : D I love one-pages and I've played many of them, but I have trouble deciding what mechanics will be the best for my game.

4. I didn't have the time yet, but I really want to try Hawker, Caveat Emptor and The Long March, and I'm sure I'l find more I like :)

1. How much time did you spend creating your game/games? 

Brainstorming phase was six hours in total, over the course of several days. The "cutting things down" phase was about one hour, and then I took about an hour again making a temporary layout that my (far more talented than me) graphic designer/artist did their own much better version of for the final product. 

2. Was there anything useful you learned in developing your games.

This is my first one page rpg (and my first TTRPG at all), and what I learned about the one-page format is that deciding what to cut to streamline things is about as important as having the idea in the first place. A *lot* of stuff didn't end up on the final page. 

3. What challenges did you face while making the game/games?

I considered and then discarded actually giving thought to the optional theme - it was easier to just take my idea and run with it than to try to fit things into a theme. Perhaps this makes me unsuited for themed game jams, lol. 

4. Finally, feel free to recommend either a game that you really like, is underrated, or has a cool premise/mechanics.

Six Arrows To Sunset and Uprooted look super cool (visually and mechanics-wise)

So happy I could contribute this year!  I've actually never written a game before, and this one was quite the whirlwind.

1. I actually didn't spend a tooooon of time on mine.  I finally had an idea the day before the deadline.  So I spent some time brainstorming and ruminating and then about 5 hours the day of the deadline.  I do think that shows.

2. I learned something useful.  Hack! Reskin!  Have a goal in mind.  Once my idea came to me (one page Carved from Brindlewood hack about fairytale characters), it became quick work.

3. My biggest challenge is layout.  My game is very plain.  A google doc with some bolding and columns.  I don't have experience with a program that does layout, so that was difficult for me.  And just from inexperience, it was tricky to know what could and couldn't be cut.  My game relies a lot on knowing Brindlewood games.

4. My underrated pick is a game called Broken Tales which is also fairytale themed but is much darker and actually has fantastic art.

This was a lot of fun.

I spend probabaly about 2 hours writing two drafts by hand for Necromance! I already had the idea in mind a spend quite dome time just thinking about it. Probably should have made more notes of that. Then i tried some difficult (for me) graphic design and spend the rest pf the month not really knowing how to do that. At the ladt possible moment i decided to just type it out and use s simple word layout. Took me maybe an hour.

I definitely learned how difficult it is to make even a simple game, and that it's okay to keep it simple. Probably should have interacted with the community more in hindsight. I read that a lot of people did playtest, something i totally didn't even think about.

My biggest challenges were probably the visual design element and overcoming my ADHD and actually sitting down and doing the thing.

I like to shout out a game made by a friend called Escape Velocity , i really like the idea of playing several generations of a generational starship, and that it actually imstructs you to take a break between scenes to listen to some music.

Overall it was a lot of fun, and will probably join again.

1. 5 hours  on a singleI set my self that as arime limit for extra challenge.

2. I learned to keep ideas fluid a lot of my ideas keep growing and wouldn't fit into a one page.

3.The biggest challenge is always starting after that, making it look decent, formatting is not something I'm good at.

This was a very fun experience! I've been working on some rules for a larger RPG project and wanted to see if they could be boiled down to fit into a one page RPG.
I am a Co-founder Ursatorium Emporium and author of 3d6 Tactics.

1. Overall I think I spent somewhere around 30 hours designing and revising the rules and visuals.
2. Being as concise as possible became the name of the game. Trying to fit an idea into such a small space was a fun exercise and really forced me to think outside the box in terms of design and language.
3. A challenge that I unintentionally imposed on myself was using visual design to inform and dictate mechanical design. The dice icons I created became the basis for the visual "language" of the game and gave rise to the shape of the clocks as well. If I had more time (I joined the jam late,) I would have definitely continued and expanded upon that "language." 
4. It may be a shameless plug, but I had a lot of fun helping the author design Mankind: First Dawn. The idea of a prehistoric cooperative rpg is very intriguing and was a lot of fun to see brought to fruition.

I agree that it seems there is not a lot of feedback and comments on games. So let's all check out some games and so something nice and/or constructive

Thanks so much for putting this 'debrief' out there - great idea! (Also, I echo the advice to take the time to go through the submissions. and download/leave a comment for the creators - it makes a huge difference.) 

1. How much time did you spend creating your game/games?

Probably about 10 hours on 'Threshold', which was my final submission. (But first, I spent another 10 hours or so on 'Speed Demons', which I then abandoned. It was a cross between the movies 'Speed' and 'The Exorcist'. Still can't decide if it's a brilliant idea, or just really dumb. Perhaps both.) 

2. Was there anything useful you learned in developing your games?

I learned so much about the reality of writing a game. I've been playing RPGs for 30 years. I've written and published 9 books. You would think that a one-page game wouldn't kick my ass, but it did. I think the big lesson I learned is that the best one-page games are really simple, and focused on tightly generating interesting stories. 'Honey Heist' works because the premise is simple - bears commit crimes! - but narratively interesting and has a simple mechanic that moves the story forward without getting in the way. Deciding which ideas/mechanics will make a good one-page game, (as opposed to a larger format) was a real challenge. Honestly, in hindsight, I think 'Threshold' is a bigger game - with too many mechanical parts - that needs more explanation that the one-page format. But these were all really useful lessons to  learn. 

3. What challenges did you face while making the game/games?

Knowing where to add material, and where to cut. I feel like I could have added more world-building with prompts and art, and cut out explanations of mechanics. Managing time was, of course, a challenge. And I think I would have worked better as part of a team - solo operators face a self-doubt saving throw every time they open the laptop, right? 

4. Finally, feel free to recommend either a game that you really like, is underrated, or has a cool premise/mechanics.

I was amazed at the diverse range of games. Seriously, people - 666 entries, and I don't think I've run across any that felt like the designer was phoning it in. It's cheesy, but this game jam has been really inspirational. So much talent, so much enthusiasm, and such a great tribe of writers/artists/game designers. You're all awesome. 

That said, here's a couple of my personal greatest hits so far, as I trawl through the results. 

Arkham Elementary - Great premise, spinning off Cthulhu lore. Really elegant, strong story prompts. 

 Old Flesh Tastes Best - Again, cool idea that's particularly impressive given that it's a game about zombies, and I thought zombies as a genre were done. I want to see the movie version of this. 

Lacksmith - Excellent use of mechanics/story, and great art to back it up. 

1. I spent around 4 hours on my submission. Basic dice roller, no fancy formatting...feels about right to spend that much time with it.
2. It was a handy reminder that I can create things that aren't just hacks of other games.
3. No particular challenges; the game I made deserves to be the core of a bigger project, and I'll be working on that in future, but it stands on its own as a neat little curiosity.
4. Heartily recommend "The Streets Are Ours," "Ironbound," and "A Perfect Rock."