Of course!

The debuffs are a nice twist to the mutations, but they feel a bit too common if someone doesn't understand how they work. I figured it out after a while; the higher Mutant Blood you have, the better chance of getting good mutations. It's not immediately inherent, however.

Emphasizing clarity would lead to a better experience for new players. Your game would benefit a lot from having a simple tutorial or altering the description to explain the mutations better.

I enjoyed it a lot more once I realized what I was doing. It's genuinely fun to play and the spritework is really nice.

Just remember to emphasize accessibility next time; prioritize the experience, because people can't enjoy your game if they don't know how to play it.

Good job on your first game! It has a really charming aesthetic and the game design is unique and fun.

The Gameplay

The resting mechanic is a nice limitation, although I felt it was a bit slow when the turtle could only move one tile at a time. This could be counteracted by having the turn automatically finish when the turtle uses up all their moves. But, I do like the option to skip your turn strategically.

Since most of the game is controlled on the keyboard, I feel like the Next Turn feature could have a key-bind as well. It would feel quicker and more intuitive than having to switch to the mouse.

With the amount of enemies, you could try to have them move faster. The skip button was a great time-saver, but the game should feel playable without having to skip as well.

(Really nice tutorial btw. Learning the controls wasn't hard for me at all)

Graphics

The flat tiles and textures fit the game's simple top-down style perfectly.

For consistency, you could try giving the pizza a black outline, as all the other important objects have one as well (the turtle and the robots). This would help symbolize that the pizza is important as well and make it stand out from background objects which have a less defined outline.

Music & Sound Design

The music does a nice job in matching the game's charm. It's an enjoyable melody, however, it's a little short. This can cause it to feel repetitive after a while, which can be a problem since it's the main backing track. You can try to fix this by patterning the melody into multiple motifs. There's a video that goes into depth about what makes Mario music sound catchy, and it might be a valuable watch if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1kn0-HIO8

There could be a lot more sound effects too. Interface, environment, level completion, etc. As long as they fit into the game, they will add to the feeling of immersion.

Last thing

Please take my feedback with a grain of salt and do anything you would feel help your game better. It is only my subjective opinion after all. I'm looking forward to seeing more games from you and everyone else who worked on the project!

I love the pixel art and UI! The hand animation is really cool lol. I know the cards are premade assets, but you incorporated them well into the atmosphere of your game.

The gameplay is well-thought-out and unique: I've never thought of a roguelike card game with mutations! Really creative!

Bonus points for having a tutorial for your combat system. It was slightly wordy though; I believe it would benefit from incorporating a show-not-tell mentality, where the player is guided through the game in a more-so visual manner. Think of PowerPoint presentations. The good ones balance their information with visual aid which helps maintain their audience's attention.

And try to make the tutorial re-playable too; it's a lot of information to remember!

Other areas of the game could benefit from a tutorial too. The high-or-lows act as their own tutorial, so those are fine.

What a lovely game! Just taking care of my fishes! :)

The fish swim very smoothly, I like how they propel themselves and gradually slow down, like how one would expect a fish to move.

I genuinely just had a really fun time playing this game. It's one of my favorites so far. I quite enjoyed the chaos of spawning as many fish as humanly possible and becoming incredulously rich.

Fun surprises too! Like I did not expect a cat paw to come out of the middle of nowhere and abduct one of my poor fish

Kind of wish my fish visibly showed what their mutations were, but it's absolutely understandable if you didn't have enough time to incorporate that.

Sound design's really good too. The occasional bubble sounds, the fish splashing into the water, the muted menu sounds; it all adds to the immersion that I'm just watching fish in an aquarium. It's pretty relaxing.

Hi, since you did the music, I'll try to focus on that as well.

Music

You did a really good job on the music! It all feels like it fits into the game and the atmospheres of the different settings.

The title music brings imminent energy and genuinely has a really catchy melody. Exactly what you would want for a game with such a fun and chaotic concept. The yard music is more toned down and calming. It feels thoughtful, complimenting how the player would be strategizing for the next race. The racing music is upbeat: feels like it's building up in anticipation for the finish line. And finally, the race completion. Heightened cheeriness which leads to a calm, silly, ragtime-y feeling. It contains the mood but acknowledges that the race is over.

All-in-all, the music was really good at encapsulating the feelings of all the environments, masterfully done.

Now for sound design as a whole: the game would really benefit from having sound effects. They don't have to overpower the music, but they can work hand-in-hand with it to make the game feel more alive. Menu buttons, environment, running, mutations, or anything else.

The rest of the game

I really like the gameplay: it reminds me of a mix of Umamusume and Duck Life. 

The charming interfaces, music, character names, and pixel art really adds to the simple, cheery vibe. It makes me smile. Cheetah Champ is genuinely such a champ lol.

The buttons could be more interactive. Sound effects and motions are the answer. The motions don't have to be too fancy and could even be a static animation, but anything to make the game feel more interactive. The menus could subtly appear too rather than instantaneously. Motion helps bring attention to the fact that something changed. Sound effects reinforce it.

I also feel like the buttons should be consistent, and the Start Race button shouldn't be hidden under View Racers: it should be it's own button. Like the Experiment button turns into a Return button, so I expected that the View Racers button would do the same.

But still, really lovable game! I'd love to see what projects y'all work on in the future!

Hi, your game has really cool mechanics. Congratulations on your first jam! I really like the idea of transferring object properties to others. It's a fun idea, and you should definitely keep it in mind for future projects.

I struggled with the controls at first, and I noticed other people had the same issue.

At the main menu, my instinct was to click the buttons with my mouse. I quickly realized it was arrow controls. I also had to cycle through universal key-binds for confirmation, like Z and shift. Listing controls for the menu would've been really helpful and have avoided any initial confusion.

For the actual game, the controls also felt a bit unintuitive. For mouse controls, the norm is usually to pair it with WASD for movement. This makes it easier to press other keys and feels more balanced (so you don't have to juggle to the controls from the arrow keys). Also, it would make a lot of sense to use right and left clicks for extract/insert, as those are actions mostly paired with moving the mouse.

With the 1 key especially, it felt like I was moving my hands all over my keyboard.

Also, indicators would help the player experience a lot. The focus of the game should be the interesting mechanics, not trying to figure out what's a wall and what's an entrance. For telling people where a new room is present, you could use subtle indicators like hanging ledges, particles, a change in color, or anything else you can think of. And for the attachment mechanic, try using a hook to tell players they can latch onto it.

I also got soft-locked several times. Once in the main menu credits, and another time when I was trying to cross the bridge and accidentally extracted the object below me. It didn't go back into my inventory, so I was just stuck. Play testers would have helped a lot in this regard, as they can be notorious for finding the most bizarre bugs you could never think of.

Genuinely though, you had amazing ideas for this project. It seems like you bit off more than you could chew, but you did a lot as a solo developer! With more time, you probably could have made a friendlier player experience too.

Try to focus on the player next time, as the player is what enables the experience.

Anyways, good luck with your future game jams!