This is gorgeously animated and I love the concept. I would play this if it were updated after the jam. The gameplay loop is very fun. However, I was overwhelmed by several things:
- In general, it was difficult to figure out exactly what I was doing. I love games that lack instructions and encourage experimentation, but with this one being timed, it created a lot of pressure. Some might like that aspect, but it made things less fun for me.
- This isn't helped by the inability to review information presented in the tutorial. The pause menu has tips, yes, but it could definitely be clearer. If you forget how to deal with folders, you have to start over to find out what to do, because they're not explicitly mentioned on the pause screen. Is there a way to put out the fires? What keeps flying across the screen? Can I reduce that effect? Which workstation is which? What do the hearts represent? I don't know.
- Moreover, the game doesn't pause during the tutorial (!!!), and the messages continue to play automatically. There's no way to move backward to take your time reading. As you can imagine, this leads to another layer of confusion. On top of this, you can't skip the tutorial, which obscures part of the live game. And I don't know how to dismiss "we're about to be busy!" dialogue, either, which also reduces visibility.
- The VFX is very distracting. It seems like that's intentional, but it's not accessible. It also exacerbates the following point:
- Lack of a custom cursor. I would constantly lose my cursor and have to pause the game to find it again.
I want to like this game even more than I already do, but I find myself squinting over and over again as I play it. I would enjoy this sooo much more if I could see.