This is wonderful! So many things to love.
- The victory animation, level select screen and the selector spotlight for picking a factory all have beautiful style.
- The rewind effect looks amazing.
- The puzzle difficulty is spot on, with easy puzzles never outstaying their welcome and with hard puzzles tough but manageable.
- The connection between the last five or six levels really makes it feel like it's building to a climax.
- The rank system makes for a really fun optimisation.
About the only things that didn't feel intuitive were around scenarios where there's no move available, e.g. being unable to drive to a blocked factory or the finicky details of the radio tower, and I think they only stand out because the rest of the game makes everything so clear and obvious.
I think level 34 was the only one where I felt like I was just brute-forcing all the options. For whatever reason I just found it very hard to reason about even though I understood the mechanics.
Think I played up to about level 30 optimising for S rank as I went, then began to leave levels to come back for later. I really enjoyed the increasingly oppressive atmosphere through the end of the game, the way the roads full of police linked up between levels, and especially the final two-parter level made for a great sense of building up to a final victory. I particularly enjoyed optimising the last level - it's great when it finally clicks in place.
The amount of polish and love put into this game is amazing. Well done, and thank you. Definitely one of my favourite Pico 8 games!