Oh, I see. So you really can consistently score markedly higher if you master the synergies. That’s very interesting to know. In that case, I guess one thing that might have helped would be having a way to reference the synergies table at anytime from within the game (like a mouse-over icon in the corner or such).
I do find that city sim games actually feel somewhat similar to breeder games (i.e. Monster Rancher, etc.). The enjoyment is derived mostly from a mixture of mastery and customization, perhaps sprinkled with some joy of discovery throughout (i.e. secrets, surprising events, etc.) to keep things interesting later on. In those games, more than anyhing, I think he payoff comes through in the form of seeing your creation thrive and perform in context. For example, we watch the city run smoothly and read the “newspaper” in Sim City, and we watch people go on rides and get a periodic earnings report in Theme Park.
So going on that, if some “advanced” building types were reserved to be unlocked with progress and if the score was presented as a mix of contextually flavored performance metrics instead, then the feelings of gratification and reward could probably come through much more strongly. Perhaps going from a small town lot to a larger city space in the vein of level advancement could also help the player master the synergies in increments while feeling like a form of progress and reward in itself.
That said, the amount of work you managed to put into this in 48hrs of solo work is already quite surprising, so I’m not sure if you would have had the extra time for those additions. Still, as this was sort of an exploration of mechanics, I figure you might want to try that post-jam to see if it can bring the fun through anyway. If you do, I’m interested to give the updated form a spin if you could give me a heads-up.