There is more to the game than just making money, but we didn’t get enough time to add enough hints to push you in the right direction. Hopefully that can be added after the jam.
I'll have to pick it up tomorrow and try to find it.
I also am not much of a fan of pico8, for a few different reasons, but the main one is that the font gives me a headache! The other big advantages of tic80 are that you can use an external editor, and that it supports Fennel instead of just Lua. The developer is also really accommodating and helpful to people who want to help contribute.
Ah I assumed there was a way to finagle pico8 to hook in fennel during the cart load, that would be unfortunate if tic80 didn't sound like a perfect alternative. Free is kinda insane in comparison but I'll take it.
Thanks for the detailed responses!