Just finished the game to 100%, and honestly, I really liked it. The story and worldbuilding of the game is all just so interesting and fun to uncover, and the gameplay is honestly quite satisfying and relaxing. Like, I know this is supposed to be an idle game, but I spent almost no time at all tabbed out from the actual game. Maybe a couple times during long waits, but otherwise I was playing the entire time, which is honestly impressive considering I've got around 20-25 hours in this game now
I think that what this game does so well at is using its resources effectively. Even though you could've just as easily made it so that there was no wait time between any actions, after playing the game, I can say for sure that would've taken away so much from this game. With all the waiting for every action, you have plenty of time to ponder on the information you've received while also thinking about the actions you're going to take, which honestly does take a lot of thinking about; even with all the moments of waiting, I'd say easily over 50-60% of the time I've spent in this game was paused, thinking about/reading plot developments or trying to plan the best way I can use my limited time. This all comes together to make it so that the primary gameplay in Terraformental literally is thinking, making it a really relaxing experience to play, and with enough "gameplay" to never bore you.
Talking a little more about the waiting stuff, I do really also like how it puts value into every action you take, making the rewards for completing them feel better and the longer ones actually feel more daunting, especially when this waiting is paired with rapidly dwindling resources you constantly have to manage, decreasing more and more with every second spent.
And to mention the game's plot one more time, it is honestly just so excellent. Another great thing about all this time spent waiting is that, when combined with all of the descriptive text provided, you really get a good chance to get a clear mental picture of the the places you visit, the objects you use, and the things that are happening. I'm not gonna make any claims that this is better than if there was some ambience or basic visuals, but I still have to appreciate how the game's plot and visualizations are like that of a well-written book.
Finally, to talk about the conceptual main mechanic, the time loop stuff is also just great. It felt really compelling to keep unlocking new more efficient ways to complete actions while also making as much progress as you could in as many Persistent actions as possible to continue progressing through the game while also unlocking even more completely new actions and paths at every location you go to. I also liked how the starting actions were balanced out, where you would always need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to repeated actions at the beginning of a loop once it resets, as well as all the things you need to do to get back to where you were in the previous loop. For me it added a lot of value to the time I had in a loop, and made it so that I really was always fighting against my limited resources with all my might, just to get a little more time in, though it also made it very satisfying whenever I figured out/unlocked new ways to make the versions actions and journey's to other locations much quicker.
I mean honestly, this is just a really great game. I'm impressed by how relaxing, satisfying, interesting, and fun it all came out to being even with such simple gameplay, and I'm certainly very excited for the future updates and eventual completion of this excellent game. Huge thanks to ShadyGames for making all this, and a good luck to the rest of its development!