itch.io

Had to make a video since a lot of what I wanted to point out would require prints, thought would be easier.

0:00 – Menu visual bug Clicking the ON/OFF button for Reduced Effects doesn't update its highlighted state. Instead, clicking Enemy Animations updates the highlight for both options.

0:40 – Coilwork Barrier Reform and Range should probably have a maximum cap.

0:55 – Blueprint progression / gem economy I finally maxed all Blueprints, and it took an extremely long time.

The fastest method I found was using the x5 Research Speed boost (the green resource—I don't remember its name). Besides increasing research speed for one hour, it also reduces the gem cost to instantly finish research by 5x.

For example:

• Normal rush cost: 10 gems
• With the boost: 2 gems

I'm not sure if this is intended since you're still spending another resource, but it effectively multiplies the value of every gem you own.

If gems are intended to be the game's main monetization, this may become an issue.

There's another exploit involving the 15-gem reward. It appears to use the game's internal timer instead of real time. Increasing game speed also increases how quickly you earn this reward.

At x28 speed, you can:

1. Enter a Voltage.
2. Skip the early waves.
3. Collect the 15 gems.
4. Reset.
5. Repeat.

This lets you earn roughly 15 gems every 20 seconds.

I think the reward should instead use its own timer based on real elapsed time (or local/system time) rather than game speed.

1:00 – Milestone capacitor rewards Milestone capacitor rewards are far too small.

For example, the base upgrade already costs 10 capacitors, while reaching Wave 750 only rewards 1 capacitor. Repeating that milestone ten times for a single upgrade isn't very motivating.

Unless there's another reliable source of capacitors later on, I'd suggest increasing milestone rewards substantially (perhaps starting around 50 and scaling upward).

1:40 – Performance Performance is much better than before. Even at x28 speed, the game remains smooth.

2:00 – Enemy pathing bug At x7 speed, performance is still excellent, but enemies start behaving strangely in the top-left corner.

They repeatedly twitch in place instead of moving forward, eventually forming a group that the tower can't reach.

2:50 – High game speed may become "pay to lose" Switching back to x1 speed shows how quickly the tower actually kills enemies.

Early in a run, this could become a serious balance issue. Since enemies move much faster at higher game speeds, players can die simply because the game simulation can't keep up.

The Blueprint game speed upgrade is arguably one of the most valuable upgrades because runs are very long. Most players will eventually want it.

If gems are monetized, players could spend money specifically to unlock faster game speeds, only to make the game harder or even lose runs because of simulation issues. That's a frustrating "pay-to-lose" experience that may make players stop playing.

4:28 – Persistent stuck enemies The enemies stuck in the top-left corner are still there even after resetting and changing Voltage.

4:28 – Performance improvement Performance is still significantly better than previous versions. Even at x28 speed, gameplay feels much smoother overall.

4:50 – Possible CPU bottleneck during damage calculation This is harder to notice, but every enemy death causes a small hitch.

My guess is that the game is calculating Tower Damage vs Enemy HP using extremely large numbers for every hit, and those calculations begin to add up at high game speeds. This may also explain why enemies eventually start grouping together.

One possible optimization would be an overkill check.

At the start of each wave, compare the maximum possible enemy HP against the minimum guaranteed tower damage.

If the tower always kills the enemy in one hit, skip the full damage calculation entirely and simply remove the enemy when hit, only processing rewards and other effects.

Only perform the full damage calculation when enemies can actually survive a hit.

Exactly what counts as "tower damage" depends on your combat system (base damage, upgrades, multipliers, critical hits, etc.), but using conservative values (worst-case tower damage versus best-case enemy HP) should make this safe.

5:05 – Visualizing the hitching This is a good place to see the issue. Watch the gem icon at the bottom of the screen—it visibly stutters every time an enemy dies, suggesting the hitch may tied to the enemy death.

The rest of the video is mostly gameplay. I didn't notice anything else worth pointing out, but I thought these issues were worth documenting.

Few random things:

I think some sort of "encyclopedia" might be cool for the game, where we can see all the different types of enemies, game mechanics and resource types (That this game have plenty) gems, charge, flux, green thing, capacitor, etc etc. You could even have the enemies have their own animation playing when reading their description/stats since would be a shame not to use the assets. Lore?

I started using the chips just took me finishing the whole blueprints but, yeah.

4500 waves milestones is crazy work, but I'm sure people will do it. 

Overall I enjoyed the game, there a few hiccup here and there but I'm sure you're working on them so it should only get better from here.

Not sure if was intentional but the repair kits are dropping from enemies instead of clearing the wave (like was before) so even at small % the spawn FAST and go away very slowly and they even stay after you reset the Votages (screenshot at wave 6 with tons of repair kits). Also toggling the animation in the options doesn't disable the animation from the repair kits, so it gets laggy pretty quick.

If the kits dropping from the enemies is intended their "screen time" should be like 7secs max, since at 7 time speed you have 1 sec to click and they should clear after every wave, believe me you would get enough even with those constraints. 

If was not intentional and they should drop from wave clears them is just a bug and probably will be fixed like before.

So far haven't seem everything from the new update but this was just too noticeable. 

I've been playing for a while, and after reaching Voltage 4, progression speeds up a lot. You earn enough resources to fully upgrade and immediately push through the next 100 waves, so the pacing feels much faster.

However, once you start buying upgrades in batches of x50, performance becomes a serious issue. Even at Voltage 15 (see screenshot), enemies can't actually damage the tower because their damage scales far slower than their HP (4.89M damage vs. 56.60Qi HP). Since they survive long enough to keep piling up, performance gets worse and worse as more enemies spawn.

The strange part is that even though my tower deals more damage than an enemy's HP (6.18Sx damage vs. 56.06Qi HP), I still can't clear them fast enough to keep their numbers under control. I even went back to Voltage 2, Wave 120 because I had missed the Protocols upgrade, and the same thing happened—enemies still reached the tower, grouped up, and tanked the frame rate.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Attack Speed scaling may be the culprit. It actually feels like enemy buildup gets worse as Attack Speed is upgraded. Even outside of gameplay, the game starts feeling sluggish—simple actions like navigating menus become noticeably slower.

Things I like

• The game is genuinely fun. Progression is a bit slow at first, but once you reach Voltage 4 it really takes off, and each new Voltage becomes much easier to complete the next 100 waves.
• Coilworks is a simple and satisfying upgrade system. You can eventually reach some absurd values, that should be capped, like range, at around around 1600 px, you already cover the whole map. 

Things I don't really use

• Chips: Scrap income from Voltages gives so much purchasing power for Coilworks that I don't see much reason to invest in Chips. Gems feel much better spent rushing Blueprints.
• Overdrive: I simply don't have Capacitors to spend here.
• Milestones: Progressing Voltages through Wave 100 (or Wave 300 for Voltage 15) feels reasonable, but the milestones that require reaching Wave 2500 are currently unrealistic. After around Wave 30, the game slows down so much that getting anywhere near Wave 2500 doesn't feel possible.

Things I don't like

• Blueprints: They're tedious to unlock. They take an extremely long time unless you spend gems, and rushing them requires navigating through multiple menus. I honestly wonder how many years it would take to complete them naturally. Once you're dealing with values around 10²¹, another +200% damage barely feels noticeable. In comparison, the Overclock upgrades feel much more rewarding. They're quick to buy, easy to understand, and as soon as I unlocked them I could immediately double every stat. It's a shame they currently cap at 4×, but I still prefer this system overall. Balancing either system at these number scales is probably difficult, but Overclock simply feels better to interact with.

Suggestions

• Add an option to disable enemy animations. At higher Voltages, enemies spawn and die so quickly that you can't even see the animations anyway. Disabling them could improve performance.
• Consider implementing enemy stacking/compression. Instead of spawning two identical enemies, spawn a single enemy with the combined stats of both—or combine any number of enemies into one entity. This would dramatically reduce the number of active entities without changing the gameplay.

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game. My biggest issue isn't progression or balance—it's performance. Eventually the limiting factor stops being the game's difficulty and becomes how many enemies the game can keep active at once.

Hacker voice [I'm in]😎

Pretty cool game

The "Gamble" thing I'm not sure if it's my luck or the odds are that low, but this took me WAY too much time even with the "Fast spin". Honestly just make instantly or toggle button or better odds (or all). 

Teleporting and death message are in Russian?.... I think. 

Sleeping resetting the terrain is kind of annoying, the hole is so big that there isn't really a reason for it, you can die and teleport back with full stamina without resetting the terrain, not sure if intentional or an exploit. Perhaps the reset is for the fear of a softlocking the player? Maybe a set of permanent blocks going down around the hole, so you can always have a way back might be an idea. 

The "rank up" requirement are too high, at the point I managed to rank up I had almost all upgrades maxed out.

Pretty good so far, can't wait for next updates. Also, "Planet Shop" Sun?
Not sure what's your future vision of "scale"  might be, but,  if you're going by size using the cosmic structures might be fun, If is by energy you can use the kardashev scale. Maybe both?

Welp, I think this is good for now, pretty cool game.

Not sure how I did it, but the max hardiness/wisdom was 183 (I think Might, might be too) before I would cap the level (75/75) but that wasn't enough to get more stats points. Now with the "Buy all" I think all the bonus that you get at once bypass something that make me get more xp than would "fit" in the 75/75 and so granting more stats point.

Not sure if is something that worth looking into...but

Pretty cool game.

Oh my sweet summer child, I WISH that it was hacked....

Welp, I think this is everything done, pretty cool game.