Great design, I had quite a hard time putting it down! But the music felt out of place though I must admit. The weight of the gears is sold really well through the clanks and the screen shakes, and I thought that was a nice effect. I would have liked maybe some more visual differentiation between different gear levels as it would both make the game look better, and it would remove some of the confusion I had with being unable to immediately see that two similar size gears were different and would not merge. Your take on the theme is a little generic, but suits in nonetheless. I rated it sort of low on originality because it was mostly reskinned Suika Game with a few minimal difference. Completely effective to just reuse past working ideas, but I didn't think originality deserved a very high score because of it.
Important on AI use: I don't understand why you guys felt the need to use AI for music when there's an amazing community right over on Discord that would be more than happy to make something novel and human. This really isn't a "I hate AI" speech, its more of a gripe I have with you guys taking away cool opportunities from the community. If you'd have looked there, you would've seen that ZaffaZone, WaterAudios, and more were seeking out a team to help out.
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thank you for testing the game and giving feedback. I don’t mind you being critical, there are valid points,
I needed to keep things simple to manage the scope, hence just one sort of gear design in different sizes. And as you pointed out it is a Suika-like with a few twists which was something I thought I could manage with the time I had.
Regarding music, I’m sorry if anyone feels I let the community down. I personally use these jams to experiment with various new tools and workflows.
Anyway, I appreciate your point of view and you taking the time to post it here