Love the core mechanic! I would love to play this again. I can see why the balance in this one is tricky because if you make the torches any more effective than they are you run the risk of breaking the mechanic and it simply being too easy. To fix this I would either increase the effectiveness of the torches and have lots of monsters. Or perhaps have the monster retreat and then attack in waves . Maybe the villagers also have to save children that have run off from the village. Anyway, love it please develop it further :)
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Thanks for playing! We are glad you enjoyed it! You are correct, the balance was very tricky. We had trouble with the torches repelling being too strong, the village attraction being too strong, them being out of balance with each other, and a problem where everything was balanced so perfectly the monster just stood still and the game play wasn't engaging! If we had time we would have tried out some non-physics solutions.
We would also like to try out some of the ideas you listed as well!
Thanks for the kind words!