So, the games for the competitions are meant to be started and finished within the time limit, right? So what exactly constitutes 'starting' the game? Is it alright to plan things on paper?
I'm not trying to find loopholes in the rules. I just want to be prepared because otherwise I probably won't even finish a game at all in such a short time

*puppydog eyes*
I think it's more of a 'competition etiquette' that you start doing everything coding/art/sound at the very beginning of the compo. You can think about it, design stuff on paper, write ideas, etc, and I doubt anybody would care.
Personally, I'm planning on prototyping stuff related to the Procedural compo (to learn the ropes) soon, but when the competition starts I'll code everything from scratch again to keep it fair. I can't be sure everybody will follow that, but I'll do it anyway.