The idea is very neat and you've built good controls to support it! The overall game is probably a bit long for what you do in it, but there's definitely enough going on to get players to collect at least a couple of scales. Something extra like mobile obstacles, random events and different poses for the traders could extend player engagement for a longer play session.
Hey, thanks for playing! If you managed to get all 9 scales, I’m curious how long it took you? I was able to do it in 7 days in my own playtesting, but of course I had insider knowledge about all the supply and demand, so it’s hard to know how other people fared.
I definitely would have liked to have more to do than just the trading, but sadly 9 days just isn’t much time to do more than 1 big mechanic.
No, I think I had 3 scales. Getting 2 or 3 is probably the average point that players will reach without further motivation since that's about how long it takes to scout the map, interact with all the traders a few times, and explore the game mechanics. I can definitely understand the limitations for games made on a time budget, this is a lot of 9 days of work!