I was having a lot of fun with this, but I appear to have soft-locked myself out of this game :(
There is no explanation of compression or how it works. After I completed my second constellation and unlocked Automation (I don't know which was the activating event) the buttons suddenly became available to me. I clicked on x100, not knowing what it did. Now my production is so slow that it will be impossible for me to ever reach convergence. With all of my 205 pips assigned, I max out at only manage to make 0.02 /s for orange, purple, and green. And I am locked with this compression setting until my next convergence, but it is now impossible for me to reach it.
I really wish there had been some kind of explanation for what compression does. I still don't even know what the point of it is except that it locked me out of playing the game :(
I also wish there was a way to restart a run without reaching convergence. As it stands, I can't keep playing the game even though I want to
Wow! This game was so much fun! I would love to play an even longer version.
I did find a bug. It seems like upgrading the maximum stock charges me more than it should and puts me into debt. (e.g. I click the "Pay 500" button and it ends up deducting 1000 from my bank.
I beat all the levels, but I never figured out what the difference between "A" and "B" connections were. I didn't seem like I needed to ever use a "B" connection and when I did, the code just seemed to ignore it and only run "A"
Also, I suspect that the "do nothing" command just causes him to wait a tick, but I don't know for certain because I never found myself in a situation where I needed it.
I really liked this game. More than any other cove-like so far, it felt like each level had an infinite number of solutions. Mainly because you could make your code as efficient or janky as you wanted. So I wonder if anyone else found uses for "B" connections or "Do Nothing" commands.
I completely agree with you that I love that it feels like a puzzle game and the planning that goes into choosing pieces. That being said, many of the levels do feel a bit static. Maybe instead of an AI, some pieces could just have set movement paths, even if it was just in a circle or back and forth. One of my favorite levels was the giga bishop precisely because I could just maneuver around it. It was COMING FOR ME.
I really hope you do take this game farther. I enjoyed it so much!
This game is very fun. I love the mechanics and puzzle-like nature of the game. And I love the unique design of all the pieces. I hope more comes of this game, I would love to play more levels and explore the mechanics further!
I think that the game would benefit from more clarity/contrast in the graphics. For examples, walls and pits are somewhat difficult to distinguish. And also, maybe some kind of grid background to make it easier to predict the movement of diagonal pieces across pits.
My only other comment is maybe including some way of indicating which pieces can hop over walls and units and which can't.
