This game feels so elegantly designed.
I love how the main goal is completely independent of the enemies; purely just about building the shrine. All the negative effects of 'enemies existing' suddenly turn into resources, like 'spending' health on a turn by not fighting in exchange for building supplies was such a great tactical decision.
I also love that you're gated not solely by mana like many other deckbuilders, but by # of cards per turn. It felt very "into the breach" if that makes sense.
The card-gating makes it a lot more accessible to plan a single turn, but also much more difficult/interesting to plan a deck. I can say "What are the exact 3 cards I want to play this turn" without needing to worry about optimizing or missing some insane 10 card combo, but I also don't get any "freebies" like in Slay the Spire with their 0 cost cards. This made basically every card addition a much more tactical choice for me.
It feels like each "unit" of content is so efficient. Like, I can imagine once you had the core mechanics in place, it probably felt like the content flowed from your fingertips when you spun up different enemies and cards!
I played the hell out of this game; I really love it. The fact that you made this for a game jam is a testament to how efficient the design is.
How did you come up with the idea for the core mechanics? Do you play a lot of deckbuilders? Is there another game/games with similar mechanics that provided some inspiration?
Anyway, awesome game!