Hey, thank you for such a thoughtful message, I genuinely enjoyed playing Dawnfall, so it never felt like a chore :)
I’m really glad that last-second typing tension worked for you. That tiny window between submitting the command and the hunter reaching you was exactly the feeling I wanted the game to revolve around. It’s also great to hear the visual danger cues held up while muted. I did want the game to remain readable without relying entirely on sound, but I wasn’t sure how well that would work in practice.
The reverb is a good callout. I’ll have to revisit the audio balance after the jam, especially on the intro and How to Play screens. There isn’t any traditional music right now, just ambience and threat sounds. I like your idea of either escalating music or something strangely calm underneath the panic.
You also weren’t the only person who got mixed up about which command belonged to which terminal, so I think the objective and location information could definitely be communicated more clearly.
The idea that making progress would worsen your situation was pretty much the central concept from the start. Every ROOT command gets you closer to restoring the network, but it also gives the rogue process more control and speed. I wanted each successful command to feel like both a victory and a mistake you couldn’t take back. An earlier version didn’t really reward you beyond progressing toward the ending, although the optional utilities were added to give the player a little breathing room along the way.
Thanks again for playing and for taking the time to write all of this out. It gave me a lot to think about for a post-jam version :)