SO I made the elixir and i got a little bit of story. I assume that there is nothing significant past this point so overall, quite fun! Usually incremental games offer predominantly idle experiences, but I liked that the progression walls were pretty low which meant that I was actively playing rather than waiting out the timer. I thought the names of objects were pretty cool and the game was particularly nice looking and polished.
1. I wasn't sure exactly how pipes work. Clearly they don't instantaneously convey resources, so there is some sort of rate associated with a pipe, but also I think attaching multiple output pipes affects the rate they void? I think figuring that out would have been relevant the way that I constructed my system.
2. Also, the game lacks an internal method to zoom in or out, which makes later game construction a bit difficult. This is related to: zooming out by modifying browser zoom also makes the elements and symbols smaller, making it difficult to see them. Particularly, the upgrade arrows.
3. I was halted for several hours because either, I had unlocked the transmutator but didn't recognize it as a new item or because that item was unlocked behind an arbitrary progression, such as a particular item amount being reached or a certain upgrade. I speculate it was the former because other items appeared upon the acquisition of new elements, mostly. I think this could be resolved with a symbol or halo or other signifier to show whether an item is posessed or not. If displaying the number of items, it could also help when refactoring around the item cap (which you are only shown once you have already reached it).
4. This is common with incremental games, but there were a lot of flickering numbers to represent things that otherwise appeared to be constants. I assume this was due to input output rates being propagated through supply chains over many frames. Still, I think it slowed down performance of my game and made planning difficult, as I couldn't reliably tell or compare flow rates.
5. I wished there was a more straightforward way to hold and store resources, especially since one upgrade asks for 800 of a resource and most reservoirs cap out at under 100, so the only way to accrue that is to wait for the 100 to accrue 8 times. I ended up using the input joiners to store resources but it was overall pretty hacky and since they couldn't be upgraded to be expanded, sometimes I would have to string several together, which made me reach the building cap. so Idk
6. I think the transmutation pipeline at the end was a bit tedious. Maybe this is indicative of me failing to optimize my system, but I had 5 steam engines and still felt like my progression was moving slowly because all of the transmutation steps required vitriol, which is derived from energy and lava, which is formed from stone and energy, aka a lot of energy, and a decent amount of stone. Having the last 5 steps rely on the same items meant that I couldn't add on to what I already had, and left me sitting around for longer than I would have preferred.
In total, I was at least curious enough to see it to the end, and I think it delivered! Great job.