Congratulations on making your first game *and* submitting to a jam. :)
The concept you came up with struck me as quite innovative and interesting. One aspect I enjoyed while playing was that it can be approached both as a more passive "toy" where you spend most of your time observing the interactions or you can be more proactive in your interactions with the game world by adding shapes or dragging things around.
It was fun to spot the different "creatures" that formed as a result of the shapes joining and the experience reminds me a bit of looking for shapes in clouds. :)
When I started playing I did find it a bit confusing to understand how the different game mechanics worked so it would probably be helpful to document a little more the game play process. (e.g. click here to choose the tool to drag/sell/add shape then click a shape to do X etc; this UI element shows you Y information etc.) But I'm also aware that documenting things clearly takes time! :)
I also wasn't 100% sure whether the shapes joining or not had any determining factor other than chance?
The novelty of the concept led me to think of some interesting variants/spin-offs it could be fun to try if you were to extend the game:
- A "dark mode" where the background is dark & the shapes are pulsating luminous neon colours that leave trails behind them as they move.
- A way to "design" the interface on each side of the shape to make it more or less likely that any particular shapes join together when they collide.
Thanks for sharing your game, it was fun spending some time playing with it. :)
Edit: Oh, also, I meant to say: nice work on making an AppImage for your entry--I'm of the opinion that AppImages are probably the best way to distribute software for Linux that actually works. :)