Thanks again so much for playing and the great feedback! We absolutely love to hear about peoples experiences, that's awesome you made it to the 3rd generation and spent some time with it! Admittedly, I also only made it to the 3rd generation over and over during testing just because I had so much fun trying goofy tower setups. I found myself testing the game but in reality I was just having fun trying funny strats (shhh dont tell the others) hahaha :) That is what I love about Tower Defence (TD) games, the ability to play in your own way, fail or succeed, and then try something new while learning along the way. For the mechanic, think of the AoE as "spreading joy to multiple people in your city at once" so rather than single target, it hits multiple people at once. Fun tip: If you get around to playing again, check out how AoE towers like the theatre (more expensive than the park but much more effective AoE) work in combination with towers like the fish farm that add an AoE slow... Needless to say you will be making quite a bit of people happy, hopefully for many generations!
Have a wonderful day! And an even better tomorrow, from the entire Weknewables team!