Story
Very mysterious vibes, started the game interested in how my role on the job was going to turn out.
When i finished a level, expected to see a development but didn't yet (after about a couple levels).
Mechanics
Main mechanic is using the input field to move in the cardinal directions and clear enemies. I think that was a nice idea to implement
Very satisfying typing sounds
For moving around it felt satisfying the first couple of times to choose directions though after that it began to be a bit repetitive / effortful to rewrite the same commands -- may be nice if we had a way to rewrite old commands like in command dos or shell by using the up or down arrow keys! Or a shortcut after a couple levels that you can gain. But then that's what DOS games are like
The holes on the grid are a bit hard to see at first
The AI is easy to understand and cool that they only seek you from seeing you on the same axis, I think that's a good idea
Clearing enemies is cool too, entity blockers are a bitch!
Graphics
Very polished experience, like the blurring and the colors
Style
Looks like a true DOS game
Game design
Pretty original idea and interpretation of the web's broken links! Love the fact that enemies can just cross these broken links anyways but not us
Gameplay
I got most of my experience after 3 levels or so, then after seeing you need 99+ jobs that I was like, man that's a lot of work left hahaha
Entity blockers were a bitch! Using clear dir only on x-axis is an interesting decision! Sometimes i tried commands like "exit" or other things intuitive, but didnt work. Would be fun if you hid cues about shortcut hacks or easter eggs to make the gameplay more surprising and varied for the player
Music
Really nice beat, seems sci-fi and groovy futuristic although it's a DOS game
Polish
Very good polish!
The tutorial could be tweaked a bit to make clear the most important features (i.e., like a one pager of all you need to know). Found myself using the help command after going through the tutorial the first time, but that's okay. I like that the instructions were a bit cryptic and the play on each colors' meaning was interesting A sense of progression to add motivation for the player either story wise or gameplay wise (or its pacing if it's already there) to continue playing, seems to me to be the most important thing to consider if you have time! The rewards at the end of each level were nice but i didn't see what getting those scores do or felt impacted
Bugs
Double messages in the tutorial (Let me upgrade your system...)
AI of red squares sometimes did not react, stayed in place for a couple turns
Overall:
Very cool atmosphere man! I think the coolest thing about this other than the typing sounds was the procedural generation of levels, it makes for a lot of content although the player may not feel inclined to get to the end if the rewards do not give you anything meaningful progress-wise/story-wise. I was intrigued by the mystery surrounding the story in the beginning, but I didn't get past five levels yet so I don't know how it pans out. It feels like having a motivation to go through the levels may be a cool thing, like having something of a story-based character hacking through the web at the same time or getting bits of story to make you curious about the next level (right now it felt like it's hard to want to do it more than five times!) but overall, this is a solid game concept about DOS and it's amazing. Hope my feedback made a bit of sense, feel free to ignore any suggestions. Very well done man!!! And good luck with the game jam and etc, see you next semester if the world has not ended yet I guess haha
