After watching Pixel Prophecy's ludum dare videos almost to a religious degree, I finally decided to try it for myself. I started using Unity... 3 days ago, so have basically 0 Programming experience,- So am I completely in over my head?

Yes. Is this a great way to get yourself out of your comfort zone and learn some useful skills? Also Yes.

So even if I don't make anything resembling a game the things I learn on the way, will be more valuable then the product after-all.

What really happends and what should you do at the end of the jam?

Do you submit before the timer ends or is there like a "submission period"? Do you add screenshots / Gameplay GIFS / descriptions before or after the submission period and does that affect ratings, as In people will play games right away after the jam ends and if your game page is blank with only name and DL link no one will pay attention to it? When CAN you actually play the entries? When you use 3rd party models & Audio the rules ask you to "opt out" of the respective categories, where and when can one do that?

What kind of service do people use to provide their games the most effective way? Just a google drive file or browser based?

Should you play games from genre's you dont like/dont know much about? Like only very few platforming games actually interested me over the years, so I haven't played many of them.

So Should I:

Not play and review any of them. Play them Judge them How I truly feel. Play them and Judge on how "I think" someone who really knows alot about platforming would judge it. Play them and only leave a comment, leaving the ratings alone(If that's even a thing). Or is there some kind of magic 5th way you can think of?

Just making sure I don't do anything wrong :) Also sorry for the formatting apparently it doesn't want to work as it does in the actual editor.

You can just staple random objects around your office.. (Credit for Idea goes to CrispyPin)

So first of all this has been Amazing, I loved making the game I loved seeing people play it and I can't express enough gratitude for all the nice and critical comments I've received. I was aiming to be in the top 500 in atleast one category for my first Ludum Dare, so I'm well pleased with the results! I'm very aware scores are a very unreliable way to judge yourself and I would have judged myself much worse so I'm very interested how you guys set yourself goals and what you're trying to achieve with each Game Jam you enter? For the next LD I definitely would love to incorporate the theme much more and focus on play testing to make the whole experience less frustrating for the player. I had a blast and I hope you guys had lots of fun aswell, till the next jam! :)

Would help me plan things!

I had big problems the last few hours with Unity not wanting to serialize certain assets and then not compiling! But huzzah it works! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/null-and-void