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Yeah, that's actually a tiny bug, an unintended consequence of granting the player an uneven number of extra track pieces in the ticket selection process, it'll also cause you to have a very unsatisfying 1 track remaining  sometimes. You're supposed to only be on even numbers, so either two off or perfect. It'll be fixed in the post-jam version!

Looks cool! Always impressed with how fast you push out these features! Fyi, the trailer is a little blurry (especially the first half)!

Thank you for the lovely comment. Super agree with everything you said. Unfortunately we couldn't quite polish as much as need due to time constraints. But it's definitely coming to the post-jam version!

Thanks for your detailed comment! Agreed on all points. The goal of the game is of course to make loops. We had planned on either crashing the train (score deduction) or disallowing starting the train, but in our rush to the finish, in the end, after submitting, we noticed we had neither system in! Oops. There was a plan to add a few tickets to incentivize crashing the train by removing the score penalty, but those ideas got cut because we were way behind schedule, and had to scope down. 

Both jam games I've seen from you contain so much content, I don't know how you manage every time! And by yourself?! Haha. 

I'll add your suggestions during the picking screen (an oversight), and an indicator for swapping the station. I think the station swapping thing was a last minute feature. And we'll change the color of the red tile. Good feedback! Thank you very much!

I remember you from the Brackey's storm game jam! We traded feedback! Another great game you've delivered here! I played for more than an hour (completing the first 200 in about 40 minutes), and truthfully I didn't even want to turn it off. It's that good. I've played at least a hundred hours of clicker heroes in my life, and this game feels like a solid reimagining of it. I was getting so flooded with number go up dopamine that my game design brain turned off at some point.

I do have some feedback from before the brain turned off, now I'll get to writing that out, and see if that turns it back on. So: I felt a little overwhelmed at first with all the panels and options on the screen when I first started the game. Totally fine for a jam version, but I'd advise unlocking or "unfolding" those panels a little more when you go for a full version. 

The tiny quest system really helped me find my bearings, and did a good job of setting tiny goals for me. I think in games like this and Clicker Heroes, they're so hard to turn off because every time you set a tiny goal, and get a boost in power, or scale a wall, it feels nice, and you immediately get railroaded into another tiny goal. I think that's part of the key design to keep in mind. It's fun to have or get a goal, complete it, and get rewarded.

I really liked the movement speed system as a sort more dynamic system than what Clicker Heroes has for monster reduction per zone. I think it's a really solid idea. And the strategies around it work well. In terms of balance, I suspect strategy-wise, as soon as you can kill the first dungeon boss consistently (i don't remember if that's what you call it), it probably becomes best to die fast and rush distance, and scale that way. The level 1 boss gives so much SP! 

One thing I didn't like was that I had no frame of reference for how strong the second boss was. I think maybe you can add a string with like recommended distance, or maybe something like "Strength compared to you: weak/impossible/whatever", to give the player an idea before they click. I never managed to defeat him.

This is getting a bit long, but there are two more things I want to talk about! 

The first is the SP system, I didn't like that both passives and abilities draw from SP, but are in different sections of the game. I'm not sure how you would want to solve that. But I want to be able to use my monkey brain. These are my options in the screen, this seems best, click. But in the current system, I would be disregarding either passives or abilities, depending on what menu I have open. I don't like that I have to close one menu, open another, remember the first menu, then evaluate, then click.

Lastly, and this is a personal preference, the thing I like most about idle games (and clicker heroes) are unfolding systems. Unlocking new layers to progress in, that helps me progress through the game, maybe on some new axis. A new resource to be gathered, heck it could even be a second mini game, whose results boost the main game. Ascensions and transcendence in Clicker Heroes are I guess examples of that, with souls being a new currency, and then another new currency for transcendence. I think your game could really use some more systems like that for a full game version. Unfolding and exploring a new mechanic makes the game feel really fresh. I like the boss-gives dark matter thing! That's a good example of what I mean. 

Oh and the final thing. I misunderstood the button above the attributes. I didn't realise it was a button at first. I thought it was a thing that turned on because I hit 100 STR, and didn't realise I still needed to upgrade it.

Anyway, loved it! Wishing you well !

Good feedback. Thank you! I will try it out in playtests for the post-jam version!

This is good feedback, thank you! I will playtest this for the post-jam version. Glad you enjoyed it!

Interesting game loop. I like the narrative, mining cheese on the moon for mooney. Very funny! After a few loops, the game became a little stale, and there really weren't any surprises (discovering things), mix ups (unexpected decisions), excitement (like the fighting enemies phase in Dome Keeper), or tenseness ("Oh no I've almost lost") unless you allow that to really happen. I like the concept though, feels like you've got something here!

Thank you so much! Kind words. I felt sad when it ended too because I intended a playthrough to run about 10-15 minutes, but due to some last day changes and not enough time for me to really playtest we missed the mark by a lot! I think i'll try to go for 10-15 stages for the post-jam version. More craziness!

DR. LOOPPENHEIMER! Love it. Very funny.

I zoned out a bit during the explanation, but then I remembered the jam theme, and saw the cool drifting lines, and lo and behold: I was playing the game. It's fun! The music is a bop, fun concept, but I could have realllly done with some sort of objective marker for the closest beacon. It was really hard to find all of them!

Cool concept! I was considering  making a platformer about dying and coming back to life too!

I initially couldn't find the key in the dashing level. I had not seen the key due to the camera, and i did not figure out there was a key until the camera finally panned to the right! Game felt a little short, and I was hoping there would be more puzzles involving the dying mechanic!

Also: i don't like having to press K to die, it's too far away! And the corpse does not spawn in the place i expect it to spawn.

Good job on making a game!

Oddly soothing to play. Kind of reminds me of a pachinko device or pinball. In terms of upgrade strategy, I couldn't really figure what is good to do. I tried all of the upgrades, but I found it hard for many of them to feel like an upgrade in terms of allowing me to score more points, or score points faster. Also, I placed one bumper quite poorly (I thought it might score points at first), and I couldn't figure out if I could remove or move it still. When I upgraded the tank, I was left with just The One Ring, and when i scored it nothing else spawned!

All in all, you have an interesting concept here! I think you have a good start to a solid idle/incremental game if you iron out the upgrade system, and maybe add some automation upgrades perhaps, and add some juicy score collecting animations. Turn this bowl of water into a bowl of dopamine!... and water!

Good job on your submission ! Good luck with the rating period!

Really cool concept! I love it, but it was really hard and I couldn't get very far in the few minutes I tried! My brain could not keep up. Maybe I'm getting old :( 

I'm going to revisit this later and try more. Really fun!

Ah this is tricky. I'm not sure what kind of feedback I can give! It's an interesting concept, but I think it doesn't really land for me. I get that you want the player to fiddle with the speeding up and down to synchronise the loops, but the math of it doesn't really come naturally to me, so I end up just either trial and erroring or offsetting the loops and waiting. Neither of which feels very rewarding when I finish a level. I went AFK for dinner during a level and came back to it being solved. 

I like the idea of maybe using sound / rhythms to sound out the puzzles. Like a 4/4 rhythm overlayed with a 3/4 or a 6/4 by letting the boxes make sounds on certain tiles, i think it would end up sounding cool at least, and maybe add an extra dimension. 

Other than, I like the visuals, and it ran well! Congratulations, and good job on a successful game jam!

Thank you for your comment! I think that's what it is supposed to be doing, but it's a complicated system and was a very big last minute change over the old rail system we had (with dragging tiles one by one, which we all pretty much universally disliked). So we'll definitely take a look at improvements for the post-jam version!

Thank you for your comment! Glad you enjoyed it! Yes it happens! One of our design goals was to encourage players to pick certain tickets (modifiers) based on circumstance, like the other tickets you have, or in this case the amount of corner or straight pieces you have. And to encourage certain playstyles, like wiggling, or building straight lines, or going only left! There's a lot more design room here to do some very fun stuff! I'm going to take a few days and then make a plan for a post-jam version!

Really fun. Great little incremental. With these types of games you always end up wondering where the time went! I really like the "unfolding" aspect, where you unlock new screens/systems/upgrades. Wish the graphics on the sides had more impact on gameplay, though. But I suppose you just added it to add to the narrative. Which is cool too!

I don't know how managed to upload your first version 3 days before the deadline. We were only just barely done conceptualizing!

/r/incremental_games would love to see this if you haven't posted it there yet!

Hi, thank you for playing, and thank you for your feedback.

Judging from what you said, the area you died on is a transition point between two areas. I tried to speed up the character to make the upcoming transition more cinematic, but it wasn't my intent to make it harder. I did add very visible arrows to try to point you to the correct  side.

I've changed the speed of that speed-up in the new version which I'll upload in a little bit.

As for the rest of your feedback, while I don't disagree with you about the simplicity the game does change a little beyond the point you reached (with some other slight mechanisms coming in). And I think it starts becoming fun when you've hit the intensity and the ridiculousness of the higher speeds. My experience is that something simple morphs into something fun when it grows difficult.