I agree - it seems best to go the less “competition-y” route. That said, how would you propose the “submitting” process work?
When we have the details worked out, we’ll post an announcements thread. After the jam itself, people can go ahead and post the links to their games in the thread.
For the date: 30th Jan - 1st February sound good? Or 6th - 8th February? We’re flexible enough with the dates that we can shift it around for anyone’s convenience, I think.
For the theme: I didn’t really get what @FairyGodfeather said about the list. Do you mean we come up with a list of prompts and then people just go ahead and write on whichever one they like? That sounds fine by me. Or do you mean we come up with lists of prompts, put each prompt into a category (like ‘genre’, ‘setting’, ‘moral’, etc) and then randomly decide which category we’re using, and then people write on a prompt from the category? That sounds good too, but it could be a little more limiting. I think it’d be best to have a free-for-all, with a list of prompts including different genres, settings, morals, themes, and even random things, and then let people write on what they want. I feel that’s less restrictive.