Thanks so much for the torough review. I see that you did this for most or perhaps all of the games. I really appreciate people doing that in general, and you don’t even have ‘a horse in this race’ so to speak.
For what you’re meant to do; connect all the gears and belts up (from the driving gear on the left to the ones controlling the height of the hammers on the right) in such a way that the bells strike between 11:30 and 12:00. (Though take note that time only advances as the gears go as well – and even backwards when in reverse.)
As you can probably guess given my answers to the other commenters, I agree with basically all of your points:
It’s badly in need of any kind of tutorial (though the game page does offer some explanation if you do follow that link).
While I could optimize the game – I think, if I where to continue with development, I’d jank out the physics entirely.
Lastly, just as I was revamping the control-scheme to have B toggling between all possible things you can place, rather than ‘physically’ placing the cursor there and selecting with A, my ‘time was up’. (B now only toggles between vertical and horizontal placed rubber-bands.)
I haven’t decided yet wether or not I continue with this jam-prototype, but bespoke levels instead of randomization seems like a good way to go indeed.