That was a little bit of nice fresh air! I'm glad I didn't get jumpscared at the end because for whatever reason I felt like it's some sort of cosmic horror game. I've maybe seen to much "cute game turns into horror" stuff and was being cautious, lol.
Oh and a nice design choice that you don't have to go back to the NPCs after collecting the items.
I'm a bit sad that I couldn't talk to the snail at the end, though :(
Easily my favourite one even though the entries were strong! I love the duality of the game and how growing can represent both good and bad things (like growing happiness or growing suffering).
At the 2nd level I was like: "But what's the puzzle?" and I figured it out on the 3rd level when I accidentally collided with "myself" (playing as forever alone, haha). So it turns out I did a perfect first run on the 2nd level without thinking lol. I now realize that the walls were supposed to squish the bad and good sides together, ending the run. It's almost like you're telling me "don't do everything at once, one step at a time is okay".
Spoilers:
You got me at the end though. I went for the bad ending because I baited myself thinking that if the positive vibes devour the bad things we're fine. Yeah, "FINE" like how we oppressed all those negative feelings like nothing, but that wouldn't solve the problem. Letting the "bad" devour the "good" is like making peace with your negative inner thoughts or that's how I interpret it at least (especially how you switch collectibles at the end and the message at the end).
Actually I'm pretty sure i'm not getting 100% of the picture or at least how the developer(s) intended the players to think - But that's great because the game makes me thinking about things and I have a feeling it's up to me, what takes I get from it! At first I tried to place both feelings together in the middle hoping for a "true ending" or something or at least that's the joined slot told me.
The menu is just pure genius - a vibing tutorial at the same time.
And the best thing is the overall game. It's put together, it's FINISHED. This is something you could easily sell with more levels, it's a ready product. Actually, sorry for calling it "just a product", it's clearly already more and I'm not someone who always tries to find meaning even when there isn't.
I already liked the idea when I visited you folks, but it's just so engaging and it's nice to see my colony grow. I became quite overpowered at the end but from a 48-hour game it's the perfect balance. It was really enjoyable and a unique experience. 1 minor visual bug though (maybe you already know): the drone counter increases when purchasing a worker. Overall though it's a 10/10 for me.
Finally got to it. I think the concept is very interesting! It's easy to learn but takes some time to find the good angle. I was lucky with the tutorial because the centipede collided in just the right angle and stuck to the tower until it got destroyed, but I realized during the real game that it's better if you give a good curved path around the tower using the green stuff. The only "negative" thing is that the centipede is too slow(?), but to be honest I'm not sure if more speed would work well or not. Maybe it could even get frustrating if it passes the towers by too fast, so I dunno - maybe you got the speed right actually.
My friend (the author) is a hardworking person who just started learning Unity. I'm amazed the speed he's picking up the engine. He may have started from copying tutorials, but his ability to fix bugs we reported to him, enhance logic and slowly but surely optimize the game is admirable. Please give it a try and leave some criticism here to help a growing future game dev! Thank you!
Now to talk about the game too: We started with just having fun "speedrunning" the game in the office, but later it became a true competition. Maybe it won't be the next Super Metroid 100% glitchless category, but it can certainly deliver 1 hour of fun at least for a small group. For free.
