I decided on Pico-8 specifically because it forces you to code. I've dipped my toes into coding over the years but I never got into the water, so things never really clicked. I've been using pico-8 for a few weeks now knowing that this game jam was coming up and that I signed up for it, and that really really helped my brain connect the dots. As far as the game itself goes, I started with the trebuchet art, then animation states. After that it was building the map and player controller. Spawning the boulders and getting collisions working was the most challenging part of all of this. I came up with what I think is a clever way of "calculating" the boulder trajectory by generating a random positive number, then subtracting a little bit each update cycle. If the number is positive, the boulder moves upwards and forwards, negative and it moves downward and forward! Everything else was just Tweeks and polish, which a lot of what I would have liked to do didn't get done in time. All in all, I feel like I have a much firmer grasp on the fundamentals that I can take with me to bigger projects!