itch.io

Cool game, but it REALLY needs some optimization like others mentioned. At some point before even the first black hole, I was getting some insane lag from the number of particles. Not to the point of being unplayable but it was getting there. And this is apparently the START of the game?

So then I bought a black hole even without whatever other upgrade it apparently wanted it me to have, because the number of particles was a pain and I figured it would reset that. So then I'm replaying the start of the game after having bought a negative upgrade. What's even the point of letting the player reach buying a blackhole before it has any upsides and only has downsides other than to be a pain in the ass if you aren't paying 100% attention?

I wouldn't even mind replaying the first bit with nerfed speed since I have the autoclicker and idle upgrades to help carry; But after tabbing away and coming back, the dozens(hundreds?) of autoclicked particles appear to have gotten permanently stuck orbiting the middle and causing the game to lag even more, making it even harder to tell what is going on except that they are apparently not getting properly eaten by the particle. The idea of handling the animation with physics or whatever is cool, but unless I'm really misunderstanding what went wrong it really needs a hard-coded limit for how long those particles can exist to prevent weird situations like that.

Then I closed and re-opened it hoping that would be a fix but there is no save so I guess that's that.

4 distinct ways that a player can end up with a strongly negative experience just by playing normally, and hitting all of them is really unfortunate, because the core loop of the game outside of that fact was honestly really really cool.

Progress scaling seems kind of weird. I've reached 33% on the stone at one of my resets, and jumped my energy multiplier up to 1.1e4x...
Except I have no idea why it ended up that high, because now my MUCH superior upgraded setup is apparently only worth 1.4e3x
All of my elements have the most quantity they've ever had, so I'm clearly significantly further in all 4 elements than whatever reset let me hit 1.1e4, and every single buyable upgrade is certainly more upgraded than whatever that run had as well.
But I'm no longer progressing at all because somehow that run was worth e4 energy and the best I can do now with everything extremely stronger is only rating as being worth e3 energy?

Agree with the others that the limited basic generation can feel a little awkwardly slow at some points, but I really think that 95% worked as intended. I really appreciated that scarcity progression pushing me into making interesting decisions, like focusing my time into upgrades to overall efficiency, vs trying to minmax the money generation to buy upgrades to the basic materials, vs speedrunning higher tier materials and hoping they would solve my problems.
If you could buy infinite of even the base materials with some fixed price like you can with other buildings, that entire carefully balanced scarcity would collapse.
Instead of getting one or two of each new building and making the most of them using your slow trickle from the previous tier, suddenly everything would center around spamming as many as you can of cisterns/quarries, then buying even more smelters, etc to use them all, and so on.
It would be a NIGHTMARE without more "flow control" type buildings like the 3 input merger, and this interface is not built to handle that much spaghetti regardless.

Also this one is definitely a nitpick but:
The upgrades tab is a bit silly containing literally just 3 one time upgrades by the end. But it's definitely the lesser of two evils, compared to trying to make the pipes a building that required upgrades or something unholy like that. 

So, overall? Really really well put together and surprisingly tightly balanced for a jam game. Even if some spots end up just a bit awkwardly short, like bricks/glass and other QoL bits like zooming out, it never took away from the fun of a well made alka-like.

Neat idea, although yeah ending this mostly active game on an unskippable 25+ minute wait with nothing to do aside from click the +researchers button is a really anticlimactic end. I can't imagine how painful it is if you opted for the blatantly incorrect +100 researchers option early on. If the game just ended around the time you unlock the get bought research, the +100 might be a comparable tradeoff, but now it just looks like a 'haha you didnt read the description properly and everything is slower now' trap.

Additionally, having the researches be manually assigned is kinda a weird mechanic anyway? Given that money can only be spent on 2 other things in the entire game and both cost negligible amounts of money so you'd never need to precisely portion off a fund just for them; So hitting the +researches button just feels like busywork.

Still, the game is really well carried by the neat premise and gameplay; Just would probably have benefitted from the "Oh I have everything well automated and now its just the numbers going up while I wait" being sped up a little, and the final 25+ minute wait be like literally decimated.

Why in god's name would you put a cap on the amount of resources you can allocate at once. It's like the game is actively trying to be frustrating to play. Is clicking 10000 times to allocate your resources efficiently supposed to be rewarding, or just a balancing mechanic to stop people from progressing as fast as their numbers?