Props for doing a mechanical add-on entry rather than a module, and making it fit the theme. I like the "layers" approach to simulating hacking. It'd be cool to use this when hacking an AI brain (or even a human one using some neural technology) and do some kind of Inception thing where you're also experiencing layers of consciousness as you go deeper.
I was confused by a lot of the mechanical explanation at first because you took a long time before getting to the central points which is that:
- The nodes are numbers on a die.
- The hacker is trying to change their number to match the secret target number, while getting clues about whether they're higher or lower.
If you said that up front and then got into the nitty-gritty, it would make life a lot easier for the reader. A visual representation of the game showing dice on a number line would also go a long way. I feel like a lot of entries in this jam make the mistake of trying to tell everything in full detail from beginning to end instead of starting with the big picture and then doing the detail.
I think the main thing that's missing for me is a way to just fail your hack attempt. You've got Hunter Worms, but they're optional. Aside from those, it seems like the only risk is on the way back out. There needs to be something like a time limit after which you have to start making Panic checks or fail the hack. Otherwise it's just sitting there rolling dice until you get in.
Visually, the biggest issue here is the small variations in type size, width, line spacing, etc. The general rule in graphic design is that if things are the same, they have to be exactly the same, and if they're different, they have to be different enough that it's clearly on purpose. Things that are just a little off are in the uncanny valley.
One example is the text in quotation marks at the top left of the interior spread. You've used a compressed version of the font there, but it's otherwise the same size, weight and color as the surrounding text, which makes it look wrong. If you need to use compressed text there for space saving reasons, make it bolder than the surrounding text and a different colour. Then it will be obviously "different on purpose" and not look like some of the regular text got squished by mistake.