Wow thank you for your extensive and detailed comment! Funny thing is: we did think about the issue and came up with a simplistic mechanic but didnt have the time to implement it as we were only a 2 person team and only one of use was programmer. Our idea was to implement a score counter and as long as you stand still and do nothing the score goes up quickly. But when you move around and put out fires your score meter stops or slows down significantly. So if you don't move at all you will lose the game at some point and if you continueously move around you won't get any points.
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Brilliant! Points are a completely made up and pointless metric that will nonetheless motivate players to take bad moves. They're the perfect metaphor for the motivations to not deal with climate change.
I understand, of course, that it's hard to put in everything you want to in a jam. I certainly didn't in mine, and the motivation to upgrade it dropped off exponentially afterwards, so you'll face no judgement from me on cutting content. That said, you've essentially identified the answer to your own question. "What would have made this game better than adequate for you?" -> "A meaningless score counter". It completes the metaphor.
Anyhow, good luck in your future endeavors. I'll certainly be interested in anything more you post to the site.