Took me a long time to understand how to play because I couldn’t tell if it was a puzzle game or (slow) action game. But I also didn’t read the instructions closely (I found the game from your reddit postmortem).
Now I get it: It’s a puzzle game where you can make a limited number of deviations in a bot’s route to try to get it to a radio dead zone.
The idea is neat, but running out of moves and having to watch the rest of the path play out is frustrating. Being able to rewind time would help a lot.
I think the semi-realtime nature works against it. If instead of a time limit, the player hit space to skip a tick, then it would feel more strategic. Requiring reflexes doesn’t seem to improve the gameplay.
I got stuck on the level with a single green square and after a few tries, wasn’t engaged enough to figure out how to use my inputs to trick the driver into helping me (which I assume is the solution). I think the loop is too frustrating to keep me playing.
Looks really nice though. And I think it’s a good match for the theme. (I gotta admit, the semi-realtime nature definitely fits with the jam theme.)