Dev here with an interesting note:
The original concept of this game is simply "Roles reversed, you're the bad-guy". We had a tangible player controller that you had to move around.
After we pivoted to just dropping in units, we realised we've also kinda put the player in the role of a game designer (or an encounter designer specifically).
Another one of the original pitches was a boss fight, but you're the boss and you have to attack the player in such a way that they *feel* excited, stressed, bored etc. We moved away from that cause who wants to program a weighting-based decision tree in a game jam? I'm really glad that initial idea of "your goal is to create gameplay" carried through