Woow, you just made my day, thank you so much for the kind words! This feeling like a proper game from 1989 is maybe the biggest compliment you could give, haha. That was also my perspective on the difficulty balancing: it should be really punishing and intense, but I can totally imagine that being a little frustrating. Your observations (I welcome nitpicks, haha) are very interesting, too! I hadn't thought about healing the player in between waves or exchanging their wool for money at the end of a wave. The first one is probably a good way to balance the game more in the player's favor. I like that the player has to exchange the wool and crops themselves, but yeah it is completely illogical, haha. Maybe the Pleasantville General Store just doesn't take wool! Lol.
I'm learning Godot right now, actually! I wanted to do one gamejam with Pico-8 as a 'graduation project' of sorts, if you know what I mean. I can't wait until the next jam, hope to see you there!