Thanks for the honest feedback. I think I really got my priorities wrong this jam, and neglected playtesting for polish. Because of this, I completely overestimated my scaling and how it would perform keeping the player in check and eventually ending their run, leading to most runs scaling into crazy numbers until breaking via bugs I never thought the player would encounter. I’m glad you pointed this out because it was a pretty big mistake that did significantly hurt the game.
I also didn’t think synergies through enough. For example, “Clock speed” ($ for time remaining at the end of a level) actively incentives reaching the exit as fast as possible instead of rewarding exploration and pushing your luck. This trivialises the game significantly, especially since it’s so impactful of an upgrade.
Because of this, I am considering making a post jam build addressing these issues so I appreciate your suggestion, as it does help me think through why I added an upgrade. At its core, an upgrade should help encourage the player to interact with the gameplay loop with rewards rather than pushing them away. Many of the upgrades actually remove from the game so they will certainly be getting changed to complement each other.
I’m glad to see sacrificing the balance wasn’t all for nothing as I was quite proud of the polish at the end so I’m happy that other people found it satisfying!
Thanks for leaving such an in-depth comment. Although critical, it is definitely valid and I would rather critical comments than positive ones. Mistakes are how you improve, right? I will definitely be taking what you said into account. Thanks again!