Man I love games you can play in public and people hear them and are like, "what the heck are you playing?" and then you show them and they go, "what the heck are you playing?"
I like how secretly clever it is. Looking through the tools the first time, I thought "why would I ever use the go-down bush?" but then I did end up using it. I could see this game getting me some pretty bad grades if I'd had it in the junior high computer lab.
I will say the tools took a bit of trial and error to figure out. I never did get the hang of which direction the owl sends you. I would never ask you to strip the anarchic art style away and replace everything with shapes, but maybe an arrow? Or a finger? At least on easy mode?
But then X. Treme is a scientist, and it's a scientist's job to figure stuff out, and I respect how well reflected his carreer is in that regard.
OH and I haven't tried it, but I think you're 99% the way to being tablet-playable. You just need a way to delete the objects. Maybe a trash can you can drag things into?
Also the player being their own worst enemy is one of my favourite things. I love it when my ability to think ahead is tested.
Great game! Love that it works in browser, will absolutely play it at work, full volume.