That’s incredibly professional advice — thank you so much! I’m a big fan of HoloCure and Vampire Survivors myself, but I’ve mostly enjoyed them from a player’s perspective. This game jam experience really helped me understand the design aspects you pointed out, and I’m sure it’ll be extremely helpful for my future projects.
You’re absolutely right about the progression and endgame. Even though I did include speed caps in my initial implementation, the fact that the upgrades still felt neutralized means the sense of investment and power-up payoff wasn’t strong enough. Also, not having enough synergy for “broken builds” was definitely a missed opportunity — discovering those crazy combos is honestly my favorite part of these games too!
Using a hard time limit for the endgame is also a great suggestion. My original idea was to let players clear the main stage and then test their limits in Endless Mode, which is a common loop, but my current upgrade system clearly isn’t deep enough to support that kind of long-term scaling yet. That’s probably what led to the “inevitably overwhelmed” feeling. This is definitely something I’d love to improve in the future. Thanks again for such a thoughtful deep dive!