people found it difficult to work smoothly through the semester - struggling with time planning and figuring out what to do, and just doing anything

[shearer12345]

For the first X weeks, do specific features, by example, and have each student signed off each week on their progress on each (by me or Demonstrators). Incorporate this progress into the marking

[Jekks]

With other assignments happening simultaneously, it is quite hard to predict what to prioritise. Personally, as Group Project was in earlier than this module, I prioritised that immensely. Though progress was still being made in this module, it hadn't started developing at a reasonable pace until the Group Project deadline had passed.

As well as this, it depends on what the students plans on implementing first by what makes sense to them. Though creating a menu with game states and then developing the game game content sounds like a reasonable order of actions, creating the main game first may be the priority of others.

[shearer12345]

Perhaps (reading feedback) a mid-term deadline (assessed or otherwise) may also help