While we're still here talking about our personal experiences during February, I might as well throw in my two cents.
Like everyone else, I had some semblance of fun working on entirely new characters and plot, mentally exploring possibilities and directions that I could take. In fact, you could say I was almost daydreaming my webcomic, to the point that I made out some general outlines for supposedly a few "books", "seasons" or whichever you prefer to call those huge story arcs, and already making several plot twists and climaxes that might last me at least a year or so, but that's just me being wishful and ambitious. Once I get hooked on a character idea I like, everything else just kind of clicked into place. Except for punchlines - they're really hard to come up with.
To be honest, this contest reminded me of an Original Character Tournament (OCT), where the goal was making a new character and creating a better entry than your opponent's in that round, and doing that every round until only one person was left to win that OCT, and having his entry and story declared as canon for that OCT. Even the time formats are similar, though the page requirements and rules are vastly different. But the core experience was still the same - you pit your ideas against someone else's (or in this case, everyone else's) and hope that the judges like yours the best.
Either way, it was awesome getting to know new artists and writers through contests like these and even more awesome to see a few more familiar faces here - guess it's a small world after all.
