I like the new animations, character portrait art, and the room. They help make the world feel more lived in. The character portrait and room in particular help make me feel a bit more connected to the character.
On my first playthrough, I couldn't rest after 21:00, but could sleep. On my second playthrough, returning to the main menu after I lost and clicking start game, I couldn't sleep, though I could rest at any time. Closing the game and restarting it completely let me sleep again.
I upgraded the Cafe at around 20:00, and when it finished upgrading the screen was darker than it had been on previous nights. After going to sleep, it reset the light levels to what I had been expecting. On a different playthrough, I upgraded the Cafe in the middle of the day. The screen was darker while it was upgrading, and stayed that way afterwards. It was about the same darkness level as the background when you have the UI for the Cafe/Market open. Opening another similar UI and closing it fixed the issue.
I wish there was an easier way to see how much energy something would take and/or if I don't have enough energy to complete a task. There were a few times I tried doing a Public Speech, almost completed it, only to run out of energy before the end and not get the full bonus for doing it. It was a bit frustrating to spend the time and energy on it, only to feel like it was wasted. It's not as bad when building something, as at least there I can finish it up once I've rested and restored some energy. I also found that I could run out of energy while doing a job, but it would still finish the job, unlike the Public Speech.
It is unclear how to establish a Club. It has red text that reads "Establish to unlock", even after getting at least one of every other type of building. It's possible I'm missing some other prerequisite, but if so it's not clear what it would be. You mentioned in the devlog that you added the ability to interact with the Club, and I was looking forward to seeing what it was.
The community stats are still not very clear. I know what buildings increase each stat, but sometimes my stats will lower and it's not fully clear why. I think it might have to do with how many other buildings I've established, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if there are other ways to increase the stats beyond establishing different buildings. If one of the goals is to make it feel like I'm connected with the community, I think it would be nice if there were more ways, or at least clearer ways, to improve the community stats, particularly once I've reached later game and have buildings in most of the available spaces.
I got all the of Defense options and the first and third Loudness options, but didn't get the second one. The only thing I have below Adequate was Entertainment, which was at Marginal. My Education rating, which says increases Offense, was at Excellent, and I'm assuming Offense and Loudness are connected.
The game feels like it's balanced for a speed run. I lost on my first playthrough. It felt like they sent out far more agents to build things between the first/tutorial and second Campaign Days and the strategy that I had used in the past didn't work well this time round. I played a couple more times with different strategies and found the best way to win was trying to take out BigRealty as quickly as possible. In my last run, I was actively trying to build up my community, and had built things in almost every single space. BigRealty had three branches, all fairly close to my room, as well as their HQ, and everything else was something I had established. On my last Campaign Day, I gathered my crowd as I had before, placed two Barricades of 10 near my room, and then started protesting. Based on the size of my crowd from previous Campaign Days, I should have had enough to reclaim two buildings before needing to gather more crowd. I only succeeded at reclaiming one before needing to gather more. In the mean time, BigRealty was sending out what felt like a similar number of agents as when they had several more branches. They took down my Barricades faster than I was expecting, and I ended up losing the game before I could get back with enough crowd to replace them. It feels like the things I do on the days before Campaign Day don't really impact our starting points, and only really influences being able to gather crowd right away instead of rallying first. Based on how my community was looking and my community ratings, it felt bad that they had so many agents showing up and taking me out. I think it also stood out in part because I could have won on the previous Campaign Day, but I was actively trying to increase to my Entertainment, so deliberately didn't go to take BigRealty out. It feels like BigRealty gets more powerful as the game progresses, regardless of how much I put into the community, which feels a bit at odds with trying to encourage the player to connect with the world.
I think in general the game could benefit from making things clearer and showing where I stand with the community better. I know that certain building improve certain stats, but I don't know if they all improve it at the same rate or if some are better than others. You always seem to start with equal support for yourself and BigRealty on Campaign Day, which doesn't feel like it matches with how things look and feel on the days before. In a previous version, you got to see where you stood with the community vs where BigRealty stood all the time, which I think helped encourage caring about the community and building it up. At the end of my last playthrough, my Loudness was at 11 and my Defense was at 18, even though my Education was higher at Excellent while my Safety was at Good. This again left me unsure how the different things impacted each other and my overall stats.
The game still doesn't feel well balanced, especially for building up the community. I want to be able to spend more time building it out and interacting with different things, but right now I feel like I was punished more than rewarded for doing so. It feels fairly easy if you know what you are doing and are focused on taking BigRealty out as quickly as possible, but it feels rather hard if you are new to the game or are trying to take your time with it.