A few years ago I was entering in heaps of Ludum Dare competition (on a different account) using Game Make Studio (and Game Maker Studio 2 when it came out). I have many years of experience with it and it's a great engine, but I never felt like it suited me for game jams. Last Ludum Dare I entered I decided to use pico-8 and I loved it.

At first it felt really restricted and I hated that I had to create my own physics and collision engines, but in the end I felt like the simplicity and restrictions really helped me focus on the gameplay instead of the graphics/sound and improved my overall creativity.

Now my next Ludum Dare is coming up and I haven't done any gamedev in the past couple years. I'm trying to figure out whether I want to go back to Game Maker Studio 2 (which I'd have to buy the licenses again) or if I should stick with pico-8.