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So maybe the base EzGui 3000 would be free, but ASDP would cost resources. I have no idea yet! What do you think?

Makes a lot of sense. As you said, the game could be infinitely complex, but it makes sense to take some of the complexity and hide it away with proper defaults. I think having the easy one for free makes it better. If as a player you had the option to not include it for optimization, then it could get frustrating having to deal with those units. Removing all the complexity that is not fun will be an important part of the design.

it’s vital we allow the player to create customized interfaces

In my opinion it would be equally important allowing the user to interact with the unit using shortcuts. At least in games like starcraft I think the UI was important to provide feedback, but most actions would be performed using the keyboard.

My current idea is to offer two different devices to output this information.

Makes sense. Would this be an option that the player can make (i.e. it could affect the cost of the unit)? or would the devices be always available and it's just a matter of complexity?

This would render something like this:

Depending on how hardcore you want to go, maybe the minimap is something the user has to create using the units' visibility and radio capabilities haha

what happens when you have multiple units selected

I think this poses an important question. In other games there are a limited number of units that behave the same way, so the user can perform actions in all of them easily. In Kikai it seems like all units could be unique. Maybe it would be responsibility of the player to define an interface between them and the units to interact in a way that makes sense (for example, attacking is the same "command" for all units). Anyway, I think this is something important to figure out and helping the player to define.

One thing that I found limiting in other RTS games is the ability to customize the way you interact with the game. Maybe Kikai could offer a mechanism to make this fully customizable. For example, in starcraft you can add shortcuts to move the camera to certain map positions or to create/select unit squads. Maybe Kikai could allow to create these behaviors using code as well. It feels it would be different code that the one you create for the units, since it would affect only the way the player interacts with the game. The way I imagine this would be by having a UI API that defines everything that the player can do, and then define the shortcuts using some keymap language:

<ctrl-a>: select-units --all
<space>sa: select-units --type "aerial"
<space>st: select-units --type "terrestrial"
<ctrl-shift-1>: squad --create "1" # creates with selecte units
<ctrl-1>: select-units --squad "1"
<ctrl-c>1: camera --save "1"
c1: camera --restore "1"

relatively realistic environment

Data sheets would be cool!

by programming the buildings

What if there were no difference between "units" and "buildings" at all? and the difference is just the components. This could allow for stationary "units" (like defenses) or movable factories. Or crazy stuff like swarm-spawning motherships.

rewrite unit code over Radio updates

This is very interesting not only to provide code updates (like strategy changes) but to externalize the strategy altogether. This enables strategies like expensive smart units controlling expendable dumb ones. Also: one important thing in RTS games is intel. What if there were some kind of mechanism to read/write the code on the enemy units? (like the engineer in command & conquer).

Radio by default is unencrypted

This is cool. One way I imagine this working is by creating a unit that listens to the radio and exposes a custom UI so the player can see the data. Maybe it's hard to create code that understands the signal, but maybe this could be something the player could figure out in real time.

yeah. Thanks for your comment. The window thing is  actually a bug that we couldn't fix. And sorry that you couldn't win! It's probable that someone was hiding in the brorders.

Thanks for playing!

AH, yes. Probably not very intuitive, but the conga can break due to excessive stretching between nodes. (and pigeons separate the conga if they hit you.)

Thank you for playing!

Thanks! We are glad you liked it! The truth is that we finished the game just in time for tho submission haha

That was really fun. I couldn't manage to find my wife and I spent too much time trying to decipher the language hahaha

BTW: I really liked the presentation. Nice text and fade-ins/outs are underrated.

Great atmosphere. It was very entertaining. I would have liked some kind of plot-twist or conclusion, but welp, that's not how reality works. I enjoyed it nonetheless. Good job!

Hey,  It works and it made me laugh, so good job!
I was kind of disappointed when I couldn't continue with my new life. It would have been so cool to change to something entirely different.