I found the game to be a little overwhelming, but it’s also not the kind of game I usually play. I think someone who plays and likes this style of game would enjoy this.
The warning about Esc on a web browser and giving the ability to change the keyboard shortcut at the very beginning was greatly appreciated. I often play games in fullscreen, and have accepted that in many cases I have to hit Esc twice (first to exit fullscreen, second to do what I need to in game) when playing. It’s always a plus when games give the option to remap keyboard keys, and I liked that you gave that option in the settings page. The warning about Esc felt above and beyond the usual remapping options, and manually changing it resulted in smoother gameplay for me. I also liked how when remapping keyboard keys, when I changed something to a key that was already in use, it swapped the two keys automatically. When I reset one of the two, however, it did not reset the other one, so you could still end up with two different things set to the same key.
Some of the background flickering on the main menu when on High and Medium graphic settings was a little fast. I liked the idea of what you were doing with it, but if I looked at it too long it could get a little headachy and might be a problem for people who are more sensitive to that kind of thing. You could try slowing the movement of those lines down to see if it reduces the flickering. I didn’t notice it on the Ultra or Low settings at all.
When I wasn’t in fullscreen, the Settings, Import/Export, Achievements, and Change Log menus where overlapped by the Credits, Discord, and Steam buttons. It was more noticeable with Achievements and Change Log, because some of the text was under the buttons and harder to read. While in fullscreen, I didn’t have an issue with the Settings, Import/Export, or Change Log menus. The Achievements menu, however, was far enough left to still be overlapped in fullscreen. The buttons were also solid in color instead of the slightly transparent when the other menus were open, so I couldn’t really tell you what the last couple of achievements on the left were. Moving the Achievements menu to be in line with the other menus would help with that.
I think the tutorial does a good job showing the basics. I was able to follow along and was pretty sure I understood what I was doing. I felt a little lost afterwards, though. I built the Wire Bonder, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to start working until my partner mentioned that I needed to start a new source machine using copper. I think expending the tutorial to include connecting the Wire Bonder to two different source machines would be helpful to new players.
I like the art style. I think it fits the overall feel of the game you are going for. The different pieces that I saw all looked distinct enough that I could tell by looking at them that they were different. I think if I played long enough I’d be able to recognize each piece by simply looking at the art instead of needing to mouse over them.
I think you have a lot of really good things going on here, and with a little more polish it’ll be a really good game.