With Ludum Dare 29 I decided to write some tips for everyone participating.

• Assemble your team a week or so before the jam starts.
• If you do get a team then get together.It’s the best way to know what everyone is doing and to keep each other motivated.
• Have your development environment ready, and tested. If you wanna try something new, do it before the jam.
• Generate as many game ideas as possible now and just tag them with the appropriate theme suggestions. (thanks @gnerkus)
• Start small and focus on the core ideia of your game.
• Make it work. Feature is breaking your game and you can’t fix it? Remove it. Don’t have enough time to make the planned 100 levels? Make 3 good ones. Stop making excuses and start making your game. Get it done.
• Take screenshots of game’s progress. Believe me, it’s nice to look back and see how much work you got done.

When the Ludum Dare ends look back through the screenshots and maybe do a postmortem about it. Remeber to keep checking for users comments and feedback. Also, don’t forget: making games is not playing games, it’s a lot of hard work before you can enjoy your creation with others.

Good luck!