While I likely won’t participate in another Adventuron jam (I just wanted to try Adventuron this time, and Inform 7 still suits my needs better), here are some thoughts.
myths and legends of a foreign land
I’m note sure that’s a very good idea, because it’s possible for the games to be disrespectul in some way for the foreign culture. It’s difficult to make enough research to stay true to the original material, especially during a jam. (All this depends of the chosen culture of course, there’s more risk with marginalised ones.)
For this Christmas jam, I think it should have begun sooner, and the voting period too. I haven’t played the games yet, and I’m not in a Christmas mood anymore since it’s mid-January.
It would have been better for the jam to start at the beginning of November, and the voting period to start at the beginning of December, so that you have the whole of December to rate the games.
If there is a themed based jam in the future it’ll probably be super vague. Something like “mythology”, or “sci-fi”.
It’s a good idea, but more than vagueness, I think that the theme should be an evocative concept, open to multiple interpretations.
In the French interactive fiction comp, the theme are things like “the sky”, “ruin” or “screens”. They are words that have multiple meanings, both litteral and figurative, that are easy to include, and it’s always interesting to see how authors used them.
For me, “sci-fi” or “mythology” are a bit too generic, they don’t help getting your imagination going.
Well, that was my 2 cents anyway.