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Some possibilities for Mirage maybe (disregard of course if these are things you've already tested + didn't like or don't fit with how you want the gameplay to feel!!):
- in higher difficulties maybe enemies that split when you shoot them the first time into smaller enemies? could help w the horde feeling/trying to strategize not getting swamped
- the amount of fog/obfuscation enemies give increasing with difficulty level
- maybe i haven't unlocked it yet or it's not in the demo, but i think it could be neat to have an item with some sync between mirage and voyage (wrt the moon aura) that makes it either so that darkness/visual obfuscation fades more quickly OR one that makes the obfuscation last longer, but gives you more aura per enemy killed (mirage)/moon you collect? 
- would having mirage have autofire/be closer to a bullet heaven type minigame work? i feel like that might help distinguish it from the flock/make it feel closer to some horde survival games, and make things like shot speed feel a bit more important when you're choosing artifacts 

im so glad the feedback has been valuable/happy to give it!! thank u for taking the time to respond :]

if i were to be more specific, i think that for fill the sea, both the artifacts and the difficulty ramping seem to have almost no mechanical impact on gameplay - if i pick it for my very first or very last minigame, it feels/plays very much the same regardless of progress or artifacts. there are a few exceptions, like that the chunks one does make it easier to conserve space, or making the enemies smaller, but the overall feel is very similar, and it doesn't feel like the enemies get that much harder through the level progression either. it's also sort of unclear which mechanisms (shot speed? stamina refill?) cause the bubble to fill more quickly/slower, just that occasionally it DOES feel like the speed is different.

whereas the forest kind of has the opposite problem - playing it in early game CAN be very mechanically challenging/it does feel very much like a strategic or puzzle game with how you have to count your shots and line up the obstacles. however the difference between how much the difficulty changes (not much mechanically imo in terms of obstacles etc) feels very disproportionate to how much the artifacts very quickly can ramp up how easy it is; ones that increase or randomize shot size especially, or ones like the scattershot/chunks/etc make it so that there's no mechanical difficulty whatsoever. whenever i've managed to save it for lategame, you can basically just set the obstacles wherever and shoot randomly and clear them on your first shot. maybe could be improved by adding obstacles in the higher difficulty levels that can stop projectiles in their tracks or taking away aura points if they're hit, if some level of strategic play is meant to continue? 

i'd say i actually enjoy the scaling w the flock and voyage - i think with those two in particular the concept of like. having to choose artifacts carefully because of the different game mechanics works pretty well; the example that comes to mind being that larger enemy size is good for the flock but bad for voyage, or that while the magnet is really nice to have in the aura rooms in the flock, sometimes when paired with the moon in voyage it's lost me that particular round. 

one other minor thing - i do kind of wish that there was a bit more in mirage to mechanically distinguish it from the flock, as it is it just kind of ends up feeling like a less challenging version of the flock? i dont MIND it, i have fun playing it, but of the currently available minigames i find it's the one that feels a bit more like a throwaway/spare, if that makes sense. 

thank you for your responses!! i hope this is helpful + doesn't come across as too critical, im vv excited to see the full game! :] 

fantastic!! if i were to give any other notes, this might be intentional (and no worries if its not, i personally dont mind planning my minigames so that the easiest are last) but it feels like the difficulty scaling for the minigames is kind of wonky if that makes sense? the flock and voyage become WAY harder as the difficulty ramps, but the forest + the bubble game are both basically the same as the easiest difficulty

fantastic game! i've played the demo a few times over, wishlisted it on steam - i've nearly done all the unlocks in the demo! one bug you guys may have to clean up is in the forest level w/ the lottery ticket - i lucked into a GIANT shot with it, but i think because of that w the setup of the level it IMMEDIATELY began to lag, was going at like a frame a second. (photo for ref)  ultimately it crashed/froze and i had to quit out 

beautiful game + very interesting! thank u!

hey, is there any chance more community copies will ever be added? 

i really appreciate that! it was my first zine attempt, and i'm glad it came across well. i'm aware the poem might itself be a little clunky - though i still like it, i wrote it at like 2 am after a graveyard shift, so there's definitely some liminal feeling to it. thank you so much for the feedback!

interesting essay - i liked the graphics that went with it, and i can absolutely empathize with the sentiment behind it. i hope you're able to feel more at peace soon, and on a more structural level that every facet of our life stops being monitored someday. 

really neat concept! i might actually try this with - my ongoing dnd campaign is set in the star wars universe, but i feel like this could be just as apt/applicable for sci fi in general/used w/ wookieepedia or something!

truly incredible - i wonder if getting top surgery is part of why people seem way less interested in me on grindr than before! 

(my funniest couple of stories from there are the time i was talking to a paramedic and asked him about the top ten worst things he'd seen people put up their ass on the job and this interaction with an army dude with no pfp but 'blue lives matter' and an american flag in his bio that asked if i liked [redacted]) 

i don't have windows, so i had to do the website version, but thank you for your work! these benches are the most aggravating things imaginable, esp when they start failing to serve even a basic purpose as benches just sheerly out of a desire to harm the homeless. i appreciate the work you put in and how neat the website was. 

i really loved this! it was short but so poignant, and at every step my brain was turning over possible stories/the concept of the world - you managed to make it so evocative with so little. i loved the ending. great work, and very melancholy/bitter but hopeful. 

https://imgur.com/FoZExyx - figured i'd just screencap. it doesn't elaborate at all in the way some do? (e.g. the ones that'll say 'made by a non-trusted developer/file is corrupted/etc)

ahh, gotcha. thanks anyway though! i'm looking forwards to hopefully getting a chance to play it!

the chip is the apple M2, and it's currently on macos ventura 13.0! 

hey, this isn't opening on mac - do you have any idea why that might be? is there any chance i could get a steam key for it, in the hopes i might be able to play the game via there? 

zine here - it's a trans poem/zine 

i'd like some feedback on things like the formatting, how well it reads, if the core concept is understandable, whether it's resonant or a bit twee, etc - i'm somewhat used to writing poetry, but this is the first time i've either made a zine at all or tried to upload anything to here. i know most of the feedback is wrt games, but if you're interested, i'd really appreciate it!

hey!! really love this, have been using it to construct my very first zine - i wish it was possible to adjust transparency of things, and to rearrange page order (if it is, i haven't yet been able to) but everything else is great! the various tools are super fun to play with. thank you!

gotcha! thanks for the advice - like i stated, i haven't really done anything like this before. i'll just go for a simple disclaimer then, thanks! (i might not even use sw5e/might go for a basic system similar to the one my friends use, i just think its a neat example.) thank you again for all your help/clarification!

awesome, thank you for the clarification, and for the advice! with that in mind, i think i'll definitely give making a contribution a shot! (both on the basis of likely quality of the end product, and just as a precaution against litigation, it'll probably be free/i'll make sure to add the appropriate disclaimers/creative commons, etc. again - i super appreciate the advice!) 

hey! the wording was slightly unclear, so i'd just like to know before i join - is it alright to do something in, say, the star wars universe/using sw5e or something as my model? the rules said that it needed to be 'original', i was just unclear as to whether that meant original universe entirely or just original content. 

thanks so much! sorry if this is a silly question, it's/it would be my first try at one of these! 

great story! i loved the subversion of the 'having a deep quote at the beginning of a game/movie' u had, as well as the realization u eventually come to that the song playing in the background of the game is/might be the one mentioned in the email. as well as just the way that the character just doesn't have the capacity to make any inferrence abt the things he sees in these messages or so on. very cool!

idk what it is but for some reason taking an edible finally made me able to finish this game. i think it's really cute graphics-wise and i like the puzzle aspects of it and having to juggle things like unemployment vs. the green energy of each overall region vs. the overall reduced emissions! it was tough! it was cute and apt enough i ended up checking out some of ur other games + the social democracy game. hope to beat that one soon! my first/last run i got assassinated. love the good work comrades

oh, my bad! i'll try and figure out how to edit the comment now! thank you for your reply!

really loved this game! i might play through at least the ending again sometime. it felt really impactful! (i got ending 4!) also, a couple things -

a) i wish there was an option to make our characters trans! (there's a nonbinary option, ofc, but i was so happy to see that leon, like myself + the character i was playing, conceptually, was a trans dude - i just wish there was some dialogue option that let it be possible we were both on the dna manipulation or somesuch. really minor gripe/suggestion, i get you can't program in all options!) additionally, during some of the dialogue at the end stage, gabriel's pronouns are switched from they/them to he/him - is that intentional/do they use they/he, or is that a misprint? 

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b) maybe i'll have to play through the game again to figure out this one, but is there any correlation between the pc's dialogue with esra about reading a book being a way to tell you're in a simulation and all the books you can pick up? that's not even a note thats just something i'm curious about 

c) i saw in a comment down below you're thinking of writing a book set in this universe! that sounds awesome, i'd love to check it out once it's done!

d) outta curiosity - is there an ending you consider to be 'canon', or a favorite you have? i get it if not, of course, but i'm just curious if you've got any darlings!

what a cute game! thank you for sharing it with us!

the title of this caught my eye while i was looking at the bundle - it was really impactful, and i hope you feel better for having made it. thank you for sharing your story, and i wish a comfortable recovery and trans joy for you. 

pretty fun game! i hope you guys do expand it soon - i'd really love a much longer version of this, esp maybe one where your team size can be bigger while up against harder enemies! i had a blast playing it though!

really fun game! my only couple of criticisms would be - 

with regards to the difficulty scaling, it really feels like the difference between 'easy' and 'normal' is in the later half of the game? for me at least i wish there was a mode that could ramp up to the hardness - it's just when i'm in the early part of the game i really need to get my bearings/get on solid ground. also - it would be cool if there was an upgrade to show how close you were getting to the core/how many levels down it is, or something else that at least reminds you what the objective is. maybe it's a little silly, but i got caught up so much in the process of mining and defense and upgrades that i totally forgot the goal was to get to the core, and got a little confused/frustrated once i'd upgraded everything and wasn't sure what to do next. 

really cool design, though - it's very cute and i love the colors, and the gameplay is one that imo immediately pulls you in!

got super sucked into this! very cool story, i can't wait to see where it goes next! i love all the love interests - honestly i super hope that it's possible to be endgame involved with more than one at once. 

very fun game! i hope at some point you'll release the google play only levels for web or for download - i can't use google play :( 

super interesting! i think some of the elements aren't wholly intuitive/could be explained a little bit better, but it's still fun! (for example, what does dynamite do? why does it only reduce your health sometimes? how do the stones work? etc)

it's working now! thank you! great game by the way!

so i've played through the regular game twice, and that's been fine. however, starting a true pryzm game, you play through kyle's pov, and get the phone call from lindsay, and then the screen fades to black and - i assume like the regular game lindsay is meant to wake up? but instead the screen just goes black and all sound stops and nothing responds; not clicking or option or the return key.  i've tried each of the 'options' kyle can go through (staying with ann then running, staying with ann, or convincing her to leave) and all of them result in that unresponsive black screen, where it's impossible to continue from there. 

hey, the 'true pryzm' mode breaks when it's meant to fade to lindsays pov

the fact that the story mechanism required some of the same ... units? clarity? as the combat was deeply nerve wracking. i got really involved in the story - great job! will probably play it again sometime to see if i can do better! 

squeaked by with two farmers as my surviving population, lmfao

a really beautiful game! unfortch there was a glitch that didn't let me put down some of the bones :( but i loved the story and the art is really beautiful

just finished it! i cried. a lot

ok yeah i made the first comment when i was still like half through the game lmaoooo its neat to see how this all ties together

oh wait, i didnt see the 'thank you for playing' thing right there. duh. whoops! still love it