1. 1024 hexes seems a bit too much, I would've liked a challenge like "reach floor X in Y hexes", then once this is hit it continues with a new challenge- higher floor and with a tighter hex limit.
2. The only thing I found unclear was the hex distribution- it appears to be random, but I don't think the player is informed of this.
3. One cool thing to shake things up would be a less uniform distribution of hexes i.e. "mostly yellow", with this distribution switching every couple floors and becoming more uniform as the player progresses, adding a layer of difficulty and dynamism as higher floors are reached.
The move and rotate tools probably could've been implicit tools, I agree. Yes, the shovel tool is for creating ponds- ponds form in rain when you have at most 4 contiguous empty tiles on a hexagonal ring, where (0, 0) is the hex centre (in axial coordinates) and is the centre of the planet ("plantet"). Ponds hold more water than grass (1000 vs 255) and transport water to surrounding hexes much more efficiently, the idea is that with a large pond you don't have to wait for rain. In hindsight how to dig ponds is really unclear; I don't think anyone has actually managed to successfully form a pond. Having ponds only form on empty tiles in a hexagonal ring was just easier to program, honestly- but it does seem to be too constrained.
I intended to have a fly eating plant that grows on hexes where meat recently decomposed, but I didn't have enough time to add that unfortunately. As a result, meat is just fertilizer. Flowers produce nectar. Some flying pieces of rock carry honeycombs- when a bee occupies a honeycomb, that's when they start transporting+turning nectar into honey (they do a bit more than this- but that's their essential role). Again, apologies that none of this is clear or intuitive- I intended this to be a bit of a puzzle game, but I think the pacing and player-interaction-feedback loop needed some work. The shopkeeper gives hints on some of this when you talk to him, but he only arrives every 5-8 minutes.
With a little more time, I probably would've added a couple more events, man-eating flowers and either tutorial or some way to nudge the player to correct behaviours. I was probably a bit ambitious on what I wanted to achieve for my first gamejam in just 6 days. Numerical hotkeys for tools was something that was always on the back of my mind, but always said to myself "I'll add it later." As you can see I never added it later, lol.
Again, thanks for the constructive review. This is my first gamejam and I learnt a lot.
Thanks. The shopkeeper takes like 5-8 minutes on average to arrive. It's designed to arrive after exactly 2 minutes the first time. I intended for it to be a bit of puzzle game where you ask the shopkeeper on the mechanics so things are revealed gradually but the waiting interval kind of screws up the pacing. I really should've added a shop button.
