Quite a lovely concept! And the execution is on par as well!
I think a very cool addition would be to have the clock in the back indicate the level you are on. and perhaps have the gears turn in set rotations? to match the ticking of a clock? I found it a bit difficult to control the exact positions of the gears. In any case, a very impressive entry! Well done!
Hey I love this idea! We had something similar in the stretch goals but never got to that point. The only visual cue was that on the final level the exit chute was bigger and glowing. I think for a punishing game like this it's important that the players know where they're up to so will definitely take that feedback on board and try to implement it into the next one.
We also spoke a lot about the controls, the set rotations is another really interesting idea and would have made the game much more 'puzzle' rather than more action based; would have been really fun to test a bit more to find the optimum experience.
Thanks so much for playing and for your feedback.
If I may suggest a way to potentially implement the ticking (for exhaustive purposes :D) You could have the simulation tick with every "turn move". That might make it a bit easier to plan out level to level, instead of leaving some of it up to chance, making it 100% deterministic as well. Essentially a time step happens with one key press (and a cooldown of .5 s between allowed keypresses to avoid player errors). I could really feel the vibe you might have been going for, seeing the gears move with the atom getting close and closer.
Although we weren't able to implement the set rotation concept, we did release a patch that adjusted some of the hit-boxes as well as include clock hands that indicate which level you are on (as they get closer towards midnight). If you get a chance to play again would love to see what your thoughts are on the patch!
