Thanks for the feedback! I love hearing your experience, and I didn't have time to get anyone to test the game before the deadline so it's only been me, which is a pretty small sample size 😂
Funny enough I arbitrarily bumped those starting bots from 5 to I think 13. Way too many for a first level I agree. The only reason I did that is because I thought I would only be able to release one level in time and I didn't want it to be a breeze! If I update the game I'll totally increase difficulty a bit slower, or give you more tools to defend yourself
(I did implement a "restart level" option in the pause menu that fully resets the level, but yeah you still get all 13 bots over time)
And yes! The game intentionally kicks you off if you lose, to further drive home the idea that you (the player) are the hacker, hacking into a server that you then play as an avatar inside of. So if you lose, you get "disconnected from the server" which boots you from the game. And if the game works properly, when you start the game again it skips the main menu and just automatically reloads the level you were in, and it keeps the locations of all the bots and you keep a percentage of the data you've already collected. An idea I didn't have time to implement is a "bloodstain" or "soul" of some sort that sits where you died that you can go and defeat a possessed version of yourself to stay on theme. In short it's a fourth-wall break idea I had that I wanted to try out.
Thanks again for the feedback, and thanks for playing!