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well, that's kind of the poison of the genre, i guess :) so many options, how do you choose where to focus on. One trick i tried here is limiting the capability of just doing every possible thing is command points, so instead of just moving every single piece on the board, the player is expected to analyse which part matters most. For example, if you see a city marked for destruction and a factory - probably makes most sense to focus on the city's evacuation - then you can found new cities with the refugees and keep finding safe spots (the strikes' placements are not completely random). you have a point though - the hint system and overall UX should be better.

You are too kind, thank you! It was actually 2 days end to end, and indeed UI is one of the biggest items that i did not find the time to do properly, all the elements on the main screen are just 1 iteration from placeholders, was trying to make them functional but UX has a long way to go. 

There is pretty much no such thing as 'playing the game wrong' - it deliberately has no 'winning' state, there are a lot of tactics you could be using and they can lead to different outcomes! as long as you didn't lead to complete humanity wipeout (which is also possible), then you are doing it right:)

If you're keen, there is an advanced settings mode, you can wildly change configs of the map and balance, there are tonnes of combinations that lead to very different play styles:)

Fair, tutorials are the trickiest part especially for a strategy. However, there are many tactics possible here (evacuating, building, fighting/delaying, running, combo of these) and there is no "win" state - only a matter of trying different things and see different outputs, yours is as valid as any other! there is a clear "loss" state if population reaches zero though, which you didn't so congrats! :)

Great hand-drawn art! i found the keyboard layout a bit awkward at first but managed to get used to it; but more HUD/UI elements certainly wouldn't go amiss - i was lost how much i am progressing and what are the current stats.. The battle controls were the highlight though, i think you guys nailed the feel of dashing around and tactically deciding between fast and power attacks, well done!

Absolutely hilarious, i hope you lads had great fun making it, same way it made me chuckle all the way in this snappy but crisp experience:)

Yooo, separate sliders for both Music AND Sound AND Master volume wot?? that's a 5/5 in my books! On a serious note - really well done, very creative idea and good writing, really gives the vibes! i wish that the compass appeared a bit sooner though, found the game a bit too punishing for not meticulously using the drawing tools. But overall very fun experience!

Very well executed and well done coordinating in such short time with such a huge team, very well polished and put together!

Brilliant work, even outside of a jam this would be a solid game, very polished and super original idea! i especially loved the sneaky education bits, now going to go learn more about all the different kinds of orbits and space manoeuvres:) very well done

hey, well done, i immediately understood the gameplay loop and made some decent progress (i think??)! probably was out of scope with so little time to level design and balance some more, but i would love a bit faster pacing and maybe some more stuff happening around to kind of immerse in this game world - surely there is a whole story why th a killer is after me and what's this secret fighting technique :D

Had quite some fun playing this one! Happy to report that beat the game on a Stegosaurus run! First loop i kind of zoned out spamming grass-2 and forgot about the countdown! was surprised at the sudden music change and a meteor wth?! Fun concept and clicker is an annoyingly addictive mechanic :) the fx on meteor strike and planet morphing is really well executed! I guess if i had to wish for anything is somehow to push me to think more strategically which elements to add to the planet, like a multiplier for particular combos? otherwise as soon as you ramp up - Stegz alone get the job done ;)  

Amazing! great execution on physics and the vibes, thoroughly enjoyed!

It's always amazing how an experience is discovered: how initial ideas and concepts evolve themselves while being worked on ^__^

Thank you! the intention was indeed to do a light brain teaser, so the player can leisurely move through the levels. The current ones are more of a proof of concept, I will work on finalising the game to the target experience, with balanced progression and hopefully even more delighting interactions.

So happy it translated the vibes like that! I will definitely finish this with less time pressure for the intended experience ^__^

Thanks so much for the kind words, I am really compelled to take all the feedback and proper time to finalise this project into a complete experience!

Thank you for the feedback! Moving the objects is definitely one of the must have features... that had to be sacrificed to the gods of crunch and solo development :| I really love that you still actually went through to the star level, based on the feedback here and in discord, I am compelled to finalise this project regardless of the jam results. Thanks for playing it! 🙌

Very creative approach, loved both the style and the gameplay! The transition between the two play modes is very well made: the change of music and the music is itself is that touch of "wow effect", very well done!

Great concept, turning city builder into a puzzle works perfect as a game mechanic and fits the theme of the jam. Music and graphics work very well together and a nice polishing touch on the tooltips: they don't get in the way and explain the mechanics well!

If you are looking for any next steps to take this further, working on balancing would be the number one priority, it seems that too much is dependent on the random number generator. I too had a big issue with rolling for road tiles and could not proceed on the first play through but did much better on the second. One way to do it would be to analyse all the openings and ensure all the tiles can be placed and if the player messes up - introduce an undo action. 


By adding more assets and little animation + levels in different biomes / geographies could very well lead this to be a nice full fledged puzzle game, well done!

High-paced management game, enjoyed it very much. A lot of potential to optimise the UI and controls plus the onboarding to the game, lost about 3 times before got the hang of it and then immediately went for the high score! Cute art and fitting music too

Thanks a lot for liking and pausing to leave a comment! 🙌

Thanks! 🙌

Yes, indeed there is a part of content in the game that got sacrificed to visual/audial polish due to time constraints and solo development. I am glad that intuition worked for you for some time. And should carry on further in updated builds in the future! Thank you for the feedback!

Thank you for the feedback! Rated and commented!

The difficulty does take a spike at the 5th level, something to be balanced in the future for sure. Thank you for the feedback!

Good direction with the careful, thoughtful pace! The music really sets the tone and does not allow to get frustrated with the controls, which are actually good but could use some improvements like a forced screen-overlay to guide the first couple of ledges (since the mechanics are relatively deep, it's hard to expect the player to intuitively grasp all the nuances, also the grabbing seems to not be playable with a laptop mousepad, so re-enforcing the idea of mouse-only would help). The looming heights do call to be climbed up on!