This has always been how the jam works! The deadline is for people who choose to use it.
Submissions remain open indefinitely, you can submit any time regardless, there are no rules and no deadlines. It's a personal challenge! The shared timer is for people to have the option to collaborate, plan in person timing etc.
So: when the timer expires, it's extended till end of the year, and then once the rate of submissions slows down, it changes to asking for a submission link instead.
Thanks for jamming!
no, there's no rules, anyone can start and end any time and submit anything, there's no way to judge that :) It's a personal challenge. there's no rankings. Look out for people like Jupiter_Hadley on youtube that cover a lot and or all of the games. The community does it!
Without a voting period, there is no incentive for people to play and provide feedback on the games. So far I've had 1 person provide me with feedback when I'd usually get at least several.
I know the voting is kinda BS anyway, but I tend to enter jams so as to get feedback from people, and that usually comes from the voting period -- how you get rated for categories via voting is usually helpful. Plus, I believe you can have categories like: fun, design, aesthetics, originality, etc. You don't need to have ultra specific areas tied to your jam or some theme that people can vote and provide feedback on. You can use the voting categories to get an impression of how your game comes across to people and where your weak areas may be.