[efnx]

I don't think not using a prebuilt game engine is a mistake. It's a bigger challenge. It may be an issue of 'who came here to win' versus 'who came here to learn'. My game (The Moonening https://github.com/incorrectangle/game-off-2012) is completely from scratch as well. Of course, there are bugs, and the poster mentioned that in his one liner - but if you're building everything from scratch you're severely disadvantaged and bugs are expected. It's a game jam! So try to give yourself some extra credit when you compare your efforts to others.