[rex64]

Ludum Dare has a special place in my heart. Participating in game jams is a great way to practice creating games from start to finish.

If you're interested, I wrote a post recounting my experience participating in Ludum Dare:

https://alessandrocuzzocrea.com/ludum-dare-47/

[Rd6n6]

I don’t know about start to finish, since finishing a real game is a massive task, but it’s a good way to learn a specific subtopic of interest. My own game I figure has 16-24 months of full time work to go on it. Even though it looks fairly full featured at the moment, “finishing” it is still a huge task

[rex64]

I agree that large projects have different challenges than small ones.

Learning how to successfully manage and complete a large project is definitely something that needs hands-on experience and cannot be completely replaced by doing lots of small projects instead.

That said, the core process is the same and, especially for beginners, doing many small projects instead of one large one is important to become familiar with the gamedev process and get as much practice as possible in the shortest amount of time.