itch.io

First impression: strong OG Pokémon vibes, which is great. Cool that it's playable on a Gameboy. This has a good style and it seems there's quite a bit to explore. Here's my feedback after playing for about half an hour.

Text: I wouldn't move the text box up and down for each new line of text, only at the start and end of dialog. It's a bit easier on the eyes that way. The amount of text shown at a time is also not a lot, which makes it harder to read a full sentence, I think the font could be smaller so sentences aren't broken up into three or four parts. It could also help to only start a new sentence at the top (meaning, don't make the last of those three visible lines the start of a new sentence).

Tutorial: it's a lot of text. I'd much prefer a sort of trial run as a tutorial, the kind where I do immediately get to play the game but the game takes me through the steps by highlighting the right elements. The arrows you use do this just fine, but the text still makes it feel too much like reading a manual right now. Try to limit the text down to the absolute bare necessities. A line like "You can talk to this NPC over there" could easily be cut, because the arrow hovering over the NPC already tells me where to go. Something like the save station that "clones your DNA" is really funny and clever, but an animation could explain this too instead of stating it through text. Basically, try using visuals as much as possible to show/explain things.

I'd also cut the tutorial up into smaller sections and sprinkle them throughout the game itself. In Pokémon, you're not immediately told how to battle, gain XP, take on gym leaders, etc. after all. Firstly, you're simply told to visit Prof Oak, so the player gets to learn how to navigate the world and interact with NPCs. Then, you're taken through your first battle. At the first gym, an NPC tells you about those. Etc. I'd incorporate much smaller, gameplay-focused tutorials like that for your game as well. Make your tutorials as much as possible a part of the game itself.

Music: the ship music is great, I ended up enjoying that tune a lot. The shipyard tune on the other hand sounds too chaotic and random to play for that long, I'd probably prefer something more chill to listen to while I'm going around shops and talking to NPCs. The music in the area that had lots of greenery and tumbleweeds was okay, but also had a beat that felt a bit too random.

Lastly, some random additions: are you limited in color use? If not, giving each area its own distinct feel with color would make them stand out more from one another. Storywise, I felt a lack of motivation for paying my debt, because it didn't feel like my debt all that much. How about a short intro that has the player crash or otherwise cause something that causes a debt? Just a thought. The flying minigame had slightly jagged controls, sometimes shooting upwards at high speed, sometimes lagging a bit, but it was otherwise a welcome bit of variation in gameplay. The controls for walking and interacting are good. I liked the NPCs I came across and enjoy the ability to pick different crewmates as co-pilot.

Anyway, this ended up being an essay, hope you can use some of that feedback. Very promising game!

Thanks for your reply! I was debating on whether the rest mechanic should be introduced earlier and that really confirms it, so I'll be making that change. That's good feedback about the story / writing too, interesting to read how someone else interprets it. The theme should definitely be more "trauma is an invisible hurt" and the difficulties that causes, but certainly not "others are mean for not seeing it". I wrote this more from a "this is what this feels like" perspective without fully considering it made it unclear to others what they should 'do' with that. That gives me some new things to think about. Ending it in a question for people to ponder over could be very interesting. Thanks for the valuable feedback!

The difficulty of jumps was something I wondered about, so that's useful feedback.  Thanks for playing!

This looks incredibly polished. The look & feel is great as is the music. The controls feel good and natural, respawn on dying feels fair.

However, this could just be me, but something does make this game hard on my eyes. I think it's the speed, it's really quite high. To compare I looked at Hollow Knight, which has a good pacing to me, but looks almost sluggish compared to the speed in this game. I'd probably want to see it lowered a bit. Alternatively, zoom the camera out further.

Wall jumping can be cheesed a little by just spamming jump into the wall; maybe a short cooldown on jumping would prevent that, if that's a problem to you.

The part where you have to drop down and avoid spikes feels a little unfair, because I can't see what's coming. I would either want to be able to move the camera down a bit to look ahead, or have the platform I'm dropping down to be in sight. It made it too trial & error. It bugged me that this made me want to give up, because the game was otherwise fun and feels polished. I admit that because of that I haven't seen enough of the game to give any further advice, but I could see this (or a sequel) be a good Metroidvania-like game too, with a world that isn't linear but can be explored in various directions, and upgradeable powers/items that could take you further down the dungeon.

Some small nitpicks: you should hide the mouse cursor in-game. I also didn't care for the timer, I would add it as a separate option, not something that's standard.

The music and art so far are lovely and set a great mood. I like the character art especially and the doors as level selectors. The game play though I still find a bit confusing.

The tutorial feels too text-heavy; I would prefer to be doing more in order to learn the controls, rather than read about them at length. The downside of this is also that it names a bunch of things in text and I still don't know what to do, because it doesn't show them. I'd rather have the game do things like highlight a button I have to press, with perhaps a single sentence explaining what it does, so I can see the effect of those mechanics immediately and understand how to use them. I find myself just pressing things a bit too randomly instead.

A small nitpick is that the text moves a bit too slow. I know you can double-click to write it out instantly, but for the "talking" effect it could still be a little faster.

I see you've gotten a bunch of feedback about the tutorial already and I agree it can use some work in order to get into the game flow quicker and easier. But the game's general great vibe and promise of what's to come definitely invites you into wanting to play.

I think if the camera gets some updates this could be a good, fast-paced game, but I found the current camera impossible to work with. It's extremely responsive, I started off spending a good 10-20 seconds just moving it to a point behind my character so I could actually see where I was going. Does it need to be movable with the mouse at all? Can't it just follow the player automatically without me being able to move it around so much? I see a bunch of other people have commented on it as well, and I'm no 3D expert myself either, so I'll leave it at that.

These are really cool game mechanics, but the difficulty is pretty high right off the bat. There's a lot you have to learn to think about; planning your movement, not hitting the walls, not being hit by projectiles, going after and hitting enemies. It's a bit too much to start off on. The tutorial works great in teaching mechanics, but I think it needs some steps in between the tutorial and the actual game.

How about slowly introducing new hazards? It could start off without the walls killing you; just a quick and simple first level that serves as the tutorial. Next, a more complex level with an enemy that moves around. Next, the enemy shoots projectiles. Next, a level where the walls can kill you. Etc. I'm not sure that fits your theme of a Boss Rush anymore, though.

The controls do feel good and make moving around fun, and the feedback from audio and such feels good as well. The camera movement feels natural too.

That was very funny, I finished the whole game and had a good time doing so. Dialog made me laugh a couple of times.

I liked the sudden change in genre (the sudden Pokémon style battle against the weeds), made me laugh. I do wish to be able to see the HP of enemies I'm fighting as well, as I can't plan a strategy as well if I don't know how many hits an enemy will take. I also feel like I should use items immediately in battle (kind of like in Pokémon), not just when it's my turn, so I can heal before an attack hits me. The poison heal item ends up being pointless to use when a dandelion will just immediately re-poison you... how about poison protection for a few turns? Or alternatively, give the dandelion multiple attacks to choose from.

The bushes and dandelions were great enemies, but the clovers were more frustrating than fun. They don't really require much strategy, just keep attacking and hope for the best. I do like the idea of a luck factor, but think it should have a different effect; high crit rate perhaps?

Now for some language nitpicking. Couple of errors:
peacful => peaceful
like your's => like yours
tommorrow => tomorrow
"wander the forest" I think you can "wander a forest", but usually you say it like "wander through/in the forest".
"now that it is all calm" sounds a little unusual too, I think "now that all is calm" or "now that it's calm again" works better, or "now that peace has returned" or something.

Lastly, for a little polishing I think the game menu could use a quit game button.

All in all, very funny game!

Right now, the game's start is still pretty jarring. I'm a strong believer that a game should explain itself when playing it, either through an in-game tutorial or by giving the player time to figure out the controls for themselves at their own pace; like an easy, short first level to get to know the controls. Because now I just got thrown into the game and died immediately not yet knowing what to do, lol.

The art & music feel fitting for the futuristic sci-fi vibe this has and complement each other fine. I didn't find the music distracting at all, if anything I think these kind of games need a good soundtrack to hype up the player. I really like the amount of upgrades this game provides and coupled with the randomization gives it good replay value.

I did encounter what looks like a bug: when I got the upgrade screen the first time, I picked the Star Buddy, and then got another upgrade screen (or it reset, probably, as it also listed the Star Buddy power-up again). But the mouse disappeared and I heard the game music start up again, and without being able to do anything, I suddenly died and the game over screen appeared. Basically looks like the game resumed but I remained stuck in the upgrade screen. This didn't happen again when I replayed the game, but it's worth mentioning.

Love the name of this game, lol, as well as the general silly vibe. This really stands out between all the serious, darker entries with its goofy, funky atmosphere. Love the animations as well, with little details like the clouds that appear when jumping. Movement feels fun as well. The basics are there for a great game, but there's room for improvements (well, as for all game jam games).

Text ideally shouldn't auto-skip but wait for player input to move on, and hints no longer need to appear after the first time (they kind of kept blocking the view). Also, after being hit by something, where the game decided to place me seemed a bit random. It sometimes put me ahead in the game, letting me skip the obstacle I died on. I mean, I'll take the help, but it felt a bit cheat-y  x)

I too found a wall-bug accidentally: jumping into a wall pushed me through it, after which I could move inside of the walled area (but not get out of it).

I got stuck in the area with the mole; I didn't have the key for the door, and seemed like all I could do there was go in a circle back to the mole, with no way to progress.

All in all though, fun entry. Nice to see such variation in this jam.

I think a line like that would work well! It's simple and gives the player that instant feedback.

I'd be careful implementing something like a slower walk. The idea makes sense on paper but tends to annoy players in practice. But you could do a 'weaker' looking walk animation, perhaps. And don't underestimate how the gameplay itself makes the player feel; being unable to reach spots that seem within my reach already makes me feel weak, or having to avoid things that insta-kill because I have nothing to protect myself. And picking up abilities that now let me do those things already flips that feeling around, with or without a 'weaker' walking cycle.

The way I handled the text is: press Space once, it skips the dynamic typing process by writing out the full text, press Space again, it moves on to the next bit. It checks if the writing loop has finished, which happens either through naturally letting the text write out, or by pressing Space the first time. I can use the same button for both functions that way, and I wouldn't worry too much about people skipping text by accident, since these are common text mechanics in virtually all games.

Yeah, the interaction with the Slime feels better to me, because I'm the one who initiated it. Whereas a forced cut scene feels like having control stripped away, something that I prefer games avoid where they can.

Love the retro vibe that this has. Controls feel solid and the zoomed out camera gives a good view of the world around me. There is a lot going on in the world, in terms of visuals and enemies, that makes it feel alive, and I like immediately seeing things like a door that I know I'll unlock later.

I personally didn't feel a huge need for a story or clear goal right off the bat, the world itself invites you to play. A lot of older NES or MS-DOS games are like that; you just get yourself a controller and simply play, and that's fine. I did wish for more check points though, or health packs, or the ability to heal right away. I kept dying, and being taken back all the way to the start is hugely demotivating. It also looks like you're not given full health when you see the two greyed out hearts, I think it'd be better to hide those if those are meant to be upgrades for later, or just give the player full health.

Lastly, something I really loved was watching things in the world interact with each other. Seeing the caterpillar die and transform into one of the enemies, then attacking the thing that killed it, was a really cool detail.

Felt a bit confusing at first that I wasn't able to jump, wondered if I was just missing something, though at the same time I was able to progress and figured I'd just see where it'd take me. But it does feel a bit jarring as we're so used to jumping in games, and I wonder if a simple story-related reason for the inability to jump (and later learning to) would help with that (maybe the stereotypical ghost with ball & chain look lmao).

Shift + X for moving down platforms seemed a bit weird as a button choice, until ledges became a thing. Still, if you're not using the arrow down key for anything, maybe just pressing down would be more intuitive? Speaking of buttons, I'm not sure why the UI doesn't allow me to use spacebar (e.g. when moving through text), and why the button for skipping text is different from the button to proceed to the next sentence. That felt a bit unintuitive to me. On the other hand, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to remember all the controls for grabbing ledges, but those ended up feeling pretty intuitive.

The intro felt a bit long to me. That's partially because when playing a game, I generally prefer to be thrown into it immediately and get to run around, get a feel for the character and controls, etc. I'd prefer a cut scene to happen after I've done a bit of running around, preferably by running into that character myself. It just makes it feel more like I chose to start the cut scene, rather than this feeling of waiting around for the game to begin. But that could very well just be me.

These are all pretty nit-picky things, though. Generally, the game felt good to play and the challenges were fun and of the right difficulty. The checkpoints always felt fair and prevented any annoyances on dying. I quite liked the section from the first screenshot, with all the jumping from ledge to ledge.

Thanks for your feedback, those are all very useful points 👍

Impressive how polished and complete this is. I love how much is interactable/slashable in the background. Good sound design and visuals, overall solid controls and camera, feels like playing a proper game. I agree with the other commenter that while the game systems (like alchemy, inventory, etc.) are cool, it is a bit of an information overload. Ideally it's spaced out a bit more over the first section of the game.

Some minor nitpicks: Looking up/down could be a little faster, the delay feels a bit too long. Jump feels a little weird too because of a slight delay, I have to hold the spacebar for longer than I expect and keep accidentally making just a little hop. Though I can see how holding the spacebar longer makes for a longer/higher jump, but I naturally expect a regular press to give me a regular jump.

Unity tip: you could consider using Platform Effector 2D on platforms, which makes it so that when you jump into a platform from below, you can pass through it (and don't annoyingly bounce into the 'ceiling'). Unless of course you specifically want to limit the player's ability to jump in places.

Keep walking to the right after the staircase. I'm guessing it's not clear enough that this is an entrance to another area? I'll take that into account moving forward.

In between all the little demos, this one really felt like playing a game. It feels well-rounded. The visuals are nice, lights and colors adding good atmosphere, and the music and sounds are good too. I really liked that the focus lied on exploration and puzzles. The section with the arrows that led to a chest with blue gems was tough as shit, but doably tough, and it felt great when I got gud and managed to do it. The controls are solid enough that a section like that feels fun (rather than just fighting against the controls). Difficulty was well-balanced. All in all, a really fun entry, and lots of potential for more. All 5s from me.

Also, nice unintentional trolling when I kept missing this jump up to a signpost and then finally getting there just to see "No entry yet" lmao.

Game has a great visual style. The controls feel good and the platforming was fun, with the minor gripe that falling sometimes results in tons of waiting around on enemies to move away, that leads more to frustration than a good challenge. There is a section where you have to double-jump and dash to the right to get higher up, and the last in this series was just a bit too far out of reach, which resulted in waiting and having to repeat a ton of stuff over and over. Difficult jumps are imo better made as a separate smaller section, so that redoing it after falling isn't as tedious. But overall, the difficulty feels balanced and the game feels fun to play.

The camera should be more ahead of the player, i.e. giving the player more space to see ahead. Vertically, the camera also cuts off just a bit too much, so that I can't tell if I'm jumping down to safety or to my death. Bit of polish there and some audio & enemy variation could really upgrade this to a great game.

Concept of using chess pieces and switching between them is really cool, had me immediately interested. The dash does feel a bit clumsy to use as is, because I can only use it in the air, so I'm just kinda hopping around back and forth trying to hit enemies. Unless you have a specific reason not to implement this, I do think it'd feel smoother if you could just dash while on the ground as well, so you can dash into enemies with more ease. I also couldn't tell at first I could even use the dash this way, so a little tutorial in-game (either in text, or something like having the player dash into an obstacle to teach him?) would be nice. I thought I could outsmart the enemies by moving up higher, not realizing they would follow me with ease x) That was pretty funny.

This is so polished! Great art style and audio, really good atmosphere right off the bat. In a potential future update, some voice acting (like reading the letter) would add to it even more. I thought the gravity felt a bit too hard, i.e. jumping and falling could feel a little smoother. The time switch mechanic is unique and adds a cool puzzle element to the genre. However, my one gripe was the insta-death -- like lightly running into spikes from the side, or touching a rat. I'd strongly prefer a health bar so it's not as unforgiving.

Thanks for checking it out! I think a lot of things are jitter-y still x) Camera and controls could still use plenty of TLC. It's all going to be looked at and updated as I continue working on it, so that too will be worked out eventually.

Thanks for checking it out!

Cool blend of horror and metroidvania and pretty fleshed out. Works pretty well too, hearing monsters creeping around the corners of a maze is successfully freaky. Controls feel good and even though there's lots of doors and corridors you're introduced to, it's not too overwhelming or unclear to know where to head to first.

This is a terribly unfinished work in progress :') but any feedback on concept, game feel or otherwise is appreciated!

I've had an idea for a game for a while that I've been wanting to explore, and this game jam could be the perfect opportunity to do something with it. However, I'm wondering if it really fits the Metroidvania genre well enough to be eligible.

It would be a game about exploration of a 2D map, with areas that are unlocked over time and upgrades to the player's skill set making backtracking worthwhile to uncover secrets. However, the focus would lie heavily on puzzles and a rich narrative. There wouldn't be fast-paced action, platforming or battling enemies in the traditional sense. It would have a more slow-paced, laid-back feel to it.

Does this sound like it fits the genre well enough?

Ah, cool you did implement that feature, I just missed the button for it then.

Went for the no-potato Director's Cut, Windows version. I have a good PC build, so that shouldn't be where the problem lies. From the sound of it, it must be something in the code.

No idea how you're coding these functions and in what order things run, so this is a totally generic and random bit of advice from the top of my head, but if things potentially freeze up because something moves on before something else is correctly finished, maybe (if you're not yet) work with co-routines that yield until things elsewhere have finished up? It's not like the game crashes, it doesn't technically "freeze" in that sense, it just doesn't do anything with my input at those points.

I was very confused about what to do at first. Had to read the itch.io page properly, because the game itself provides no information when you start it. I just lost a number of times and didn't understand why. It needs more information: I didn't realize the red dot was the hero, I didn't know my controls or my options, I didn't fully get the goal of the game until I got a score. The concept is solid and I quite like the graphics, but it needs a bit of a tutorial to get someone started.

That was an experience.

I like the creepy vibe of humans as trees, with no real explanation. But I did want *some* answers, some pieces of (environmental) storytelling. Why am I collecting flesh? Do I do anything with it, do I need a certain amount? Do I have a specific goal at all? I also think if you should want to keep working on this, there's more horror elements you could add; do the human trees ever move, come alive, take revenge?

Camera moved a bit slow for my liking. Really had to drag the mouse quite a bit to rotate myself.

All in all, a fun creepy environment, with room for more storytelling.

This is a pretty fun entry. The music's fun and the controls felt solid and easy to pick up (though I would put the control scheme in the actual game).

The contrast in the menu is a bit too low, I find it a little hard to see which item is selected. Also, why put the instructions window on a timer? Kept having to click it to fully read it.

I found myself not really using the sonar attack that much. I flew fast enough to avoid enemies anyway and was more concerned about the timer of packages, and it didn't feel super intuitive to use since I kept expecting it to shoot ahead of me instead of sideways. Maybe more challenges can motivate the use of sonar attacks more? I also found after a bit of playing that it gets repetitive fairly quickly; something more needs to change to keep the challenge fresh, e.g. characters move around instead of sitting still, obstacles might have to be shot in order to reach a package target, other little changes in the map that keep it varied, etc.

Really love the graphics, this has a great visual style, nice animations, well-chosen music and sounds. Very polished. The only thing that stands out, is the font. I would go with a pixel font that fits the visual style (Unity also provides a pretty nice one with the TMPro extras).

On the tutorial: I think you should pause time entirely to let new players figure out what to do (meaning, when placing a trap, let me do it without having to deal with the running character just yet). With that said, I figured it out soon enough and started thinking strategically on how to make my character run for the reverse round. It's a fun challenge and I like the take on the reversal theme.

The only question I couldn't help but ask was: why, though? Why do *I* have to play as both the good and the bad god? As the player, I don't feel like I want it to be my goal to kill the running dude, I don't feel a reward in it, the game simply makes me, and that makes the game experience feel a bit weird. Perhaps if there is more of a narrative purpose for that, one that makes me want to play as both good and bad god characters, it helps streamline the whole experience a bit more.

The intro was nice, beautifully drawn and quite well voice-acted. The game itself has a cute look too and nice music, though I would have the music loop a little faster (meaning, the silent pause between loops felt noticeably long).

With an open world like this though (even if small), exploring around is what many players will typically do. I heard what the scarecrow asked for, but I also just intuitively went about my way hopping around the environment, naturally drawn towards interesting landmarks like the mushrooms, treehouse and airplane. You give me an open playground, I want to go out and play. Only much later did I find the key. I don't think that's bad though, but you might want to consider either a) hiding the key at a more interesting landmark players will quickly feel drawn to (as they instantly grab your attention) b) alternatively, hiding those landmarks somehow (morning fog? fences locking progression? idk) until the key has been found, for natural progression throughout the open world, or c) keeping the key in the field as is, just putting other cool things to interact with at those landmarks, so that random exploration is rewarded (for example: can I interact with the ax, if only to have some little text pop up, can I 'read' some of the books at the treehouse for a funny quote or handy tip, can I pick up random little items like the vegetables purely for the fun of messing around with them?). Or in short: either design a bit more for linear progression, guiding the player towards key item #1, then unlocking more of the world to find key item #2, then unlocking more for #3 and so forth, for a smoother experience; or design more for non-linear open exploration, letting the player go anywhere right away but making that more rewarding by having many interactable and/or obtainable items scattered throughout the world. Either of those can help prevent the world from feeling empty, or the player from not quite knowing what to do or where to go. Hope that wall of text wasn't too much, just some of my thoughts after playing this.

Lastly, I experienced no bugs of any kind, and movement throughout the world generally felt good, control-wise.

Fun game. Something very satisfying and relaxing about being able to play a puzzle game by just 'lazily' clicking both mouse buttons. Some levels end up being very satisfying, others are more trial & error and a bit of messing about to get it right. I think that's just one downside of the concept: you can see the solution, plan for it, and still mess it up and have to retry and fiddle around until you get it exactly right, because you just barely over- or underclicked it. For the most part though, the levels felt smooth and intuitive enough. The graphics aren't particularly exciting, but they're clear enough and I understood how to play it pretty quickly. The music's also a great choice. Great game to expand upon with new obstacles (and as another commenter suggested, a new block, or perhaps something that extra reverses the gravity of the existing blocks?) but beware that the difficulty of a level is largely in the puzzle, and not purely in the fiddling about with having to click exactly perfectly.

Didn't fully figure out how to play until a bit of trial & error, but once I understood it felt intuitive. Fun concept and gameplay, though I did feel that the timer decreased pretty rapidly (not sure why a timer should decrease faster, a timer has an inherent difficulty already) and buying more time becomes a near-pointless cycle of taking a few seconds to buy a few seconds. I'm not sure if it's intended that way, but it was impossible for me to actually buy enough time again to have some room to breathe and focus on getting more eggs again. It felt like a losing battle. I would've liked to be able to buy like 5 extra seconds right away.

Also not gonna lie, the egg-breaking sounds in the intro straight-up jumpscared me, lmao.

I remember seeing this game on one of Mark's streams. I can see it's been improved upon quite a bit. The UI has become much more clear and the gameplay is more fleshed out.

While I got into the game without much difficulty, I think a small intro, perhaps something tutorial-like that leads you through the first turn, explaining your options and what steps to take, could still be a good addition.

Hovering over cards, I expected an explanation and only saw that an info card does pop up until much later. I definitely moved the mouse too fast to be able to notice that. Think it's better to just have it pop up immediately on mouse-hover, no real reason to put in a delay.

After playing the full game, all the cards and their effects are clear to me and I was able to win. It was fun, but it was also not terribly challenging. As someone else pointed out, I'd also expected the farmer to make moves that you might have to counter. As a random idea: the farmer might simply have ulterior goals? Growing other plants that require other types of care; not a lot of farmers trying to grow cacti I bet. The nature cards also sometimes halted my growth somewhat, but didn't do much damage either. I didn't feel like I had to plan ahead for winter, for example; I just kinda played whatever random card the game provided for me, usually picking flowers.

I just watched a documentary covering cacti actually, so if you'll allow me to spew some random ideas: given that cacti store water so well, there's lot of animals (mainly birds) that try to get a sip of that, so there are ideas for other obstacles to encounter, and expanding on that, perhaps the cactus must make different choices to survive those obstacles; flowers as the end goal or growing spikes for self-defense. For that matter, flowers are grown to create 'offspring', so perhaps it becomes a choice of growing your main cactus taller, or growing flowers to spawn new cacti. Anyway, just thinking out loud here.

The incredibly abstract art had me a little puzzled at first as to what I had to do (pushing squares on other squares?). I feel like a *tad* more detail on the objects would help a bit in that regard, giving more meaning to your actions. Though with that said, the little tutorial levels at the start are also great at explaining the mechanics.

This reminded me a bit of some puzzles in Baba Is You. That had me automatically pressing Backspace to try to reverse a wrong move, a very useful option in that game; I think that would be great here too (albeit perhaps quite some work) to implement, as restarting an entire level over a single misstep sometimes felt quite harsh. Another thing that I appreciate in Baba Is You is the ability to skip a difficult level and just come back to it later; from the map, you always have access to multiple levels, you don't need to solve them all or do them in a precisely linear fashion. Not that you have to copy that game, but I found those mechanics work very well to balance out the difficulty.

The concept is cool and the puzzles are clever, but I also have to agree on difficulty ramping up too fast.

That was probably where it happened, yeah.

Great visual style with a good choice of colors, UI looks good as well. I quite like the idea of using external applications to do research for within the game. This looks like a game with a lot of promise, but it really does need a bit of an in-game intro to tell you the goal of the game and what steps to take first, should you continue working on this.

The cursor has issues, but I see you're aware of that already. It doesn't feel like the camera's view/movement is linked to the mouse target quite correctly. I'd add a Cursor.visible = false, too, since you have an in-game cursor in the center.

Also, the drone's movement felt incredibly sensitive. I'm particularly sensitive to this in games, so it may just be me, but it did make me feel dizzy within seconds.