wonderful! thank you for the detailed response. honestly i love that it sparks this sort of feedback. you can probably tell i had a bit of that spark but somewhat failed at the implementation (like the tasks all being the same). i think the core of the multiple tool "bug" is "wow i am so powerful and doing so much!" which is quite fun and rewarding (one other person commented that they were "really cooking" haha :D). i think the variety in the tools or variety of the tasks could give a bit of each. the tools solving on the same floor was done so i could play 3/4 players on NES which didn't even really end up happening (the original nearest job algorithm wasn't very clever)
i don't think i'll continue work on the gameboy / NES side of things but it has made me think about other simpler two player games that I could try for the next jam, perhaps even some that are simple enough for the link cable. I would like to revisit this idea soon, mainly out of my own desire to play with my family and friends. feedback like this helps a lot! thank you for playing!