Hello GreenWizard, I would like to write a small review of your game.
After playing it at browser, I downloaded and stress-tested the game using Cheat Engine, a good PC and a Potato PC.
There is no performance difference in a good PC or Potato PC. The game sustains lots of sprites and movement without slowing down. The visual options, however, need to be better addressed before a final release.
Text outline is totally necessary during moments where there are lots of things in the screen at the same time. I suggest it comes enabled by default.
It was not totally clear to me at first gameplay that you could prestige. The acronym PP made no sense until I understood it was Prestige Points. However the amount of Gold retrieved stays the same. One *can* reach endgame without ever needing to prestige.
Disabling screen shake sometimes re-enable itself. Prestige is one of the causes of it. Calamities and New Mountain also keep screen shake even with the option disabled. I need to remove screen shake because I have vertigo. Excess screen shake may cause accessibility problems for your players.
Disabling particles remove also the particles that visually inform the player a new mountain appeared, remaining only the mountain movement itself. The result is a dull animation. I suggest to split the option into ''mountain particles'' and ''projectile particles''.
The artefact's acquisition pop-up is useful for new players at the beginning of the game, but at end-game, when 2 or more artefacts come, it becomes annoying, because you cannot access other options until click/dismiss the artefact pop up. There is no visual indicator of precedence of pop-ups. Text is just rendered one over the other, making it difficult to know where to click. I usually just click outside all until only the main one is active.
There is no practical limit of how many dwarves can be at screen. Turrets, for example, can be placed even beyond screen size. They fire, but don't hit rocks. Miners can become a meat tower until the upper part of the screen. In this case, they tend to launch their pickaxes/dynamites all at the same time without delay.
Some units are way more efficient than others. Stacked Lasers make Ballistas obsoleted. Fire causes almost neglectible damage to the mountain. A player can focus solely in stacking more Lasers and it will be enough.
The faster the Runners go and come back, the better the Gold acquisition. Therefore, a player can just avoid increasing the carrying capacity altogether, focusing on speed.
The discovering of the tech tree is well done. The indicators in the menus reminding of what is necessary to unlock certain feature are good. I would like to suggest the inclusion of a discoverable tech tree image, as a better visual indicator.
Sound settings are perfect.
How about an option to increase the mouse performance in manually moving gold?
A couple months from now, the game will be ready to proper release. Keep the good working, we are waiting for it!
