Thank you for playing and for the video. I think I see what happened now.

During the breakthrough state, the player is supposed to click the planet core to push the transformation forward, but that interaction clearly was not communicated well enough. So you were not doing anything wrong.  The game did not make the next step obvious.

I’m going to improve this in two ways: first, I’ll make the breakthrough prompt clearer so it tells players to click the planet core, and second, I’m adding a failsafe so that if the stage goal has already been reached, the player cannot get stuck there forever if the interaction is missed or the fragments do not merge correctly.

I really appreciate the report and the video. It helped me see that this is both a tutorial/communication issue and a softlock issue.

Thank you so much for playing! I really appreciate that. I’m glad the core idea came through because that is the part I’m most excited about building on.

You are definitely right about the upgrade menu. A few players have pointed out that it was hard on the eyes and not pleasant to read, so I’m doing a UI pass now with a darker outer-space theme, better contrast, and cleaner layout/composition.

Thanks again for the feedback. It helps a lot to know the concept has potential while I keep improving the readability and balance.

So I feel like a lot change since I played it last, the biggest change being, before when I click on the cubes, they would burst and explode nearly right away in groups like chain explosions. Now it has changed to where I need to constantly click on the one cube to get it to explode, which is fine, and I can see this is obvious as the cube (large dust) becomes increasingly red over the number of clicks. I feel like you changed the mouse click radius or the area of effect that influenced the logic that breaks the cubes apart. Which I get a sense you did this to slow the pace of breaking apart the dust into fragments and increase the impact that upgrades have on different behavior / mechanics. 

I had not experienced the upgrade system up until now, so I am not sure what kinds of issues other people were having (the payments possibly too expensive). I believe this upgrade system will be a huge balancing act. As this is my first time having access to it I am finding that I receive such an allowance of spendable points that I burn through the upgrades extremely quickly without fully grasping impactful changes that influence the gameplay in a gradual way. The upgrades escalate very quickly, drastically changing the gameplay, especially as you get to wave 4. I am not sure what your are expecting for an average target time of 10 runs was to be, but I did it within a few minutes. 

I also noticed that the dust particles were producing so fast and being absorbed much more quickly this time around instead of whimsically swirling around in a orbit where the gravity increased over time, pulling them in like a whirlpool. I personally did not get to enjoy the visual effects of the dust particles and their trails the same way I did the first time I played. They are being absorbed too fast into the core. I liked taking in the detail of the particles winding in. This effect is even more so after i maxxed out some upgrades that influenced the rate at which the dust gets absorbed. While yes you had some dramatic screen shake last time around, I think you should consider adding it back, but only so slightly. I feel like in general, the screen shake was crucial to convey the sense of energy and power that cosmic forces would be perceived to have, it fed into the theme of the project. Or at least make it an option to turn off, but either way, I thought the screen shake was meaningful, just needed to be toned down, or even just added to the part where you are clicking on the core to expand it. (because now it doesn't feel present at all~ which for me lessened the visual feedback and entertainment value). 

I noticed that I was still able to collect dust particles after the time was up, adding to my mass (even after the core was ready to level up). So after the seconds were done I could just keep collecting the rest of what was still floating around, adding to my mass as spendable allowance (not sure if this was intentional).

I feel like you should really change the green text from that bright yellow in the Upgrade UI. The green text can burn your eyes out, I found it really painful to see (personally). Then when it change to black text, I was like "oh freakin thank you lord" XD. I would consider the black text as the staple state for readability against the yellow. I would also say you should apply desaturated values to the UI. Like how you have those side bars Strange/Anomaly/Fragment~ those are so readable and easy on the eyes. Or even the same color scheme you used on the Start Menu is more readable and easier on the eyes. That yellow is so bright and when you pair it with another bright color, its too much... but if you dropped that yellow saturation (if yellow is the color you are trying to design with), it would feel much better. And partly because the yellow buttons takes up about 40- 50% of the screen space. Booom! Then I hit that last level with the Yellow screeeenn looll! Noooo!! XD 

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-contrast-analyzer

This is a really useful tool in general for colors if you would be interested in any trial and error experimentation for color choices.

I appreciate the thorough explanation. That was a problem with the prior build's advancement; you weren't missing anything.

The game may trap the player before the transformation, results, and upgrades function effectively, even while it is approaching the breakthrough state. To fix this, I published a new build that enhances the fragment-to-core behavior, upgrades access, and rounds results flow.

The current objective is for players to break through dust, acquire connected mass, accomplish a stage goal, finish the planet transformation, and then go or upgrade.

Thank you so much for the input. It helped identify a significant obstacle. I'd love to know whether you can get past that point now by trying the latest version.