As a molecular physicist, I had a hard time following the physics here, but the game part is really cool! I liked that you could repel things or attract them based on spin, even though that doesn't make a ton of sense quantum mechanically xD I also liked the cheeky p-orbital that showed up part way through, though I don't think I made it far enough to encounter any d's (if such a thing even exists lol). Graphically, the style was really cool, and I quite enjoyed the sound design as well!! I wish I could've made H2 cause all the Hydrogen ions were stressing me out, but I guess that might've made the game too trivial haha

Overall amazing! The interpretation of the theme was very creative and the execution really well done. I was a little bit stuck at the beginning, since I didn't understand that the atoms needed to have every orbital filled with electrons of the same spin before they could receive ones with the opposite one, but I thankfully remembered my chemistry lesson on this xd -- the "Common Confusions?" segment on the itch.io page was also very helpful in figuring out stuff. I'd love to play more of this if you decide on adding extra content!

Pretty impressive game idea! Congrats! Unfortunately, it was just a bit too complicated for me, also, visually, not everything was easy to read.. I could totally imagine playing this for a long time if it was a bit clearer :)

This is a really cool entry. I never would've thought to interpret the word "SPIN" as  referring to quantum spin and making a game about chemistry.  Easiest 5/5 to creativity & theme I've given this jam.

This game looks stellar from a visual standpoint. The art style is really cohesive, and the color choices are on point (I love cyan and orange for spin up & spin down). The music fits the setting of the game really well and is just a really good theme on its own; I never once found it irritating. The sound effects are also really well done.

I also found the gameplay concept to be really cool. You strike a good balance between fun gameplay and physical accuracy, and it all comes together really well. I especially appreciate the order in which you need to add electrons to orbitals. I could see myself coming back to a more polished version of this game and trying to rack up a high score whenever I need to kill time.

Now, moving onto criticism. I know you've gotten this a lot (enough so that you needed paragraphs of explanation on the main page), but this game is confusing. It's not that quantum mechanics is confusing, (I got the hang of electron order pretty quickly, though I might be biased since I knew this stuff beforehand). Rather, there are a lot of small things that go unexplained, get in the way of the player's intent, or otherwise make the game a lot more complicated to play than it needs to be. I'll go through it in bullet points, since it's a lot of disjointed stuff.

In regards to the tutorial:

• Having to aim the cursor at the atom for so long for it to progress is confusing. The only visual feedback that anything's happening is that tiny bar that very slowly shrinks over time; and it's not even immediately clear that it only shrinks if you hover over it since, again, it takes so long. If you don't notice that, it's very easy to think you're supposed to do something. I like the idea of making the player aim, but I'd suggest having the bar decrease faster, maybe change color when the player's hovering over it, etc. just so it's clearer that things are happening.
• Electron addition order could be explained slightly better. When we see the 3 p-orbitals for the first time, you're just told, "Here you have to fill each orbital with one of the same spin." And when you're done, then you're told, "Now fill each with one of the opposite spin!" By the end of this whole lengthy process (during which you're probably wrangling with the controls), you have to have remembered this whole "add three of one spin, then three of the opposite spin" despite having received this in two instructions far apart from each other. You also have to recognize that this is only for the 3 p-orbitals, despite this never being explicitly mentioned. I think you have to be a lot more explicit with the p-orbitals because they're a lot more confusing. You can explain s-orbitals as just "add one then the other", but you have to say something like, "These long orbitals work a bit differently. They always appear in groups of three, and they have to be filled together in sync," etc.
• The tutorial never explains that the last electron you picked affects player color, nor that player color affects attract vs. repel. I eventually realized this on my own after playing for some time, but this should've been explained during the tutorial. Alongside this, you should also say what attract and repel actually mean in terms of how you move electrons around, rather than leaving the player to figure it out.
• It's also never stated that your element changes for every electron you add, not every orbital you fill. This I think especially needs an explicit mention since this is a place where the game deviates from real life. Irl, atomic number is increased by adding protons, not electrons.

In regards to mechanics:

• I know you've been told this a lot, but the camera sensitivity is an absolute pain at vertical angles and makes traversal extremely tough. I think a lot of the confusion you've seen could be chalked up to people having a hard time controlling where they're going and what they're looking at.
• A simple WASD-space-shift movement control scheme would've been really nice . Since you're floating around in a 3D space without that solid of a surrounding environment, it can be really hard to perceive depth and gauge where you'll actually end up when you click.
• Speaking of depth perception, it's a massive issue when you're trying to repel electrons. Electrons don't go very far when you launch them, and it led to a lot of confusion early on. When I try to launch an electron at an atom, I expect the electron to actually reach the atom. The fact that it doesn't (even when it looks like it should, again owing the weird sense of depth) probably led to a lot of people being confused about what launching electrons was supposed to do. I imagine many tried repelling that first spin down atom, saw that nothing happened, and started scratching their heads.
• Also, the camera locking when try to repel electrons makes aiming way harder than it needs to be. 
• It seems larger and larger atoms spawn in as the game progresses, but at a point it feels like I get larger atoms not by actually making them myself but by waiting for them to show up. Rather than giving the player a bunch of large atoms, I'd make reactivity increase more slowly and give the player time to build up their own atoms from hydrogens (maybe at most I'd give the player lithium).

There might be a couple of other things I forgot to mention, but that's what I can think of right now. Despite the paragraphs and paragraphs of criticism, I want to reiterate that I think this game is really really cool and has an impressive amount of effort put into it. With better controls, I could absolutely see it being my favorite in the jam. Awesome work!

I felt like i was fighting the camera more than really enjoying the game

But it was still fun none the less

This game is probably the coolest and most unique take on the spin to win theme so far!

I absolutely adore the visuals, the aesthetic of this game makes me jealous! Its really polished, there was clearly a focus on game feel!

I honestly sucked at the game, but that does not really affect its rating for me.

One of the best games this jam- definitely top 5 for me!

I am utter trash at this game, the control scheme takes a lot of getting used to, managing the reactor with everything that’s going on is a lot. But nonetheless, this was a very fun game, and is in my opinion one of the most interesting themes you could’ve taken with this game. Great work!

Really neat idea and interpretation of the theme!

Camera and movement was a little hard to control though, and I would either shoot past where I wanted to go, or be facing the wrong way when repelling.

Took me forever to sit down and try this one out, because I'd heard it was a more difficult puzzle game than most here. I gotta say - once it clicked, it clicked.

The general idea is really interesting and unique - spinning up atoms using electrons to make larger atom molecules, creating covalent bonds between atoms to make larger compounds, and generally playing god.

I absolutely suck at this game - but I still managed to have fun.

It took a moment to click that the attract/repel thing changed depending on whether you were the same colour as the electron - for a while I was mixing up the colours with that, and so ended up struggling to form the right shells for atomic structures. But once it clicked, I managed to play for a good while before my reactivity hit critical mass.

I will say, the camera controls need a bit of work - hitting the top angle ended up with a rubber-banding back and forth that made things rather disorienting, and being unable to rotate your camera view at all while attached to a Repel electron didn't really feel too great. The core movement however, felt good, and zipping about the formless void felt fun.

But this game delivers on exactly what it was trying to do - and it creates a really depth-fuelled experience that I can very easily see people getting super in-depth with.

I am become dumb, destroyer of brain cells.

This game is really creative! I'm a biology major that did not like chem so it felt like a jumpscare at first 😂. The style and the concept are so cool though, I really enjoyed it. Great submission!

I feel educated! Really cool game, it kinda made me feel like I needed to remember some chemistry which is cool since it's information I don't normally used lol and it feels good to make it useful! The graphics are really cool, the music fits just perfectly.

My suggestions would be, if you want to continue it further, in the tutorial maybe mark with orbitals are already filled? Since I got a bit stuck there when I didn't know which ones I've already filled. And the camera not being able to move when I repelled an atom :____(((. Maybe it'd be better for it to aim automatically there. But overall, really cool game :D/

No way ! Another game about spin up / spin down equilibrium !

I like the pixel filter, it really enhances the simple visuals.

However the navigation system is quite clunky. I had trouble figuring out where I was / where I came from (that may be a me problem though) but more importantly sometimes I was pointing in a direction and the whole screen would start spinning which would lost me even more and I didn't know how to stop it (I just moved the mouse and clicked everywhere until it stopped). So I didn't manage to make some very heavy elements nor to make bounds with 3 or more atoms but it was still quite fun

It's really cool seeing other atom games in this jam (great minds think alike lol). This game is really fun! I love just zooming around in the empty space. The game is really complicated but fun once you understand the arrows help a lot. I liked this game a lot! Great job! 

I think I'm too stupid for this game :c

You gave me ptsd to my quantum final S teir gameplay and it was really fun but imma go take some asprin to stop this headache I just got :)

In all actuality this game is really well put together, I feel like if you dont have any prior knowledge of quantum this game will very difficult though. Since I do have this knowledge it was really fun to play and I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

I'm not knowledgeable enough about chemistry or physics to fully enjoy this but wow this seems like a super complex game that would be really amazing for a certain type of crowd. The visual style plus the music is what really sold me on this. It's also super simple gameplay wise but I can only imagine the depth it has.

For me personally I followed what instructions said (orange arrow = put blue ball in, and blue arrow = put orange ball in) And I managed to get one of the big balls to level 5 but struggled to do much beyond that point and scored a measly 350 points. I wish there was more of an indication as to how to get the more complex elements but I guess I'm just the wrong audience. Also maybe letting you control the camera when pushing a ball could be nice. Otherwise this is a really impressive game and i love the ambience and aesthetic so much!

As someone who likes chemistry and physics, this game is REALLY fun! I really like the idea, and its such a creative and unique take on the jam theme. (It's also very serious since it's sochem focused) I think that when I looked up or down, the camera would do a really janky spin motion that made me a bit confused. Other than that, I really enjoyed the game!

Hello! I've played your game for a while, and while I didn't do very well or make it very far into endless mode, I have some feedback!

• There's no way to exit to menu from in game or in tutorial. I wanted to re-start the tutorial because I felt like I missed something and I could not, I had to lose the tutorial before I could restart it (I suppose I could have also refreshed the page, but I was still playing around to see what did what at the time)
• This game is fairly confusing at first! That might be my bad, I didn't fully read the Itch page before jumping in, you explain a lot of stuff there.
• It took me a while to figure out why sometimes the electrons attract and why sometimes they repel. Even once I figured it out I didn't love the mechanic, it might be nicer if you could right click to change your color at will so you can attract/repel as you want? Just an idea. 
• The camera was a little sensitive I think! Sometimes when I got near the bottom of the play area it would really glitch out. It didn't bother me too much but I can see people with motion sickness struggling with this game.
• The tutorial did not really explain what an orbital was. I suppose I should have remembered some of this from high school, lol. But the tutorial tells you there's 3 orbitals and for a while I was confused because I thought I was seeing 6. I understand now but maybe the tutorial could be expanded just a bit where it highlights the orbitals to show how the extend both ways from the center of the atom in several directions?
• First part of the tutorial where you have to hover over the atom for a few seconds for the dialogue to advance also confused me. This one is totally my bad though, the text clearly says "Keep aiming here" and there is a bar to show how long before the text advances. But I still thought I had to do something else the first time I did the tutorial.
• Sorry I'm harping on the tutorial so much, but it's where most of my observations happened. I also didn't like how the text for the tutorial was floating over the atom so if I was too close I had to back up to read it. I know it would be less visually stylish but I think just having text on the screen would be easier for the player to get the information.
• Once you get into endless mode and have a bunch of atoms floating around I found it difficult to keep track of which one I was working on at any given time (unless it was considerably more advanced than the others). This was especially bad when I had to go behind an electron to repel it and I lost track of the atom from my view for a few seconds. Maybe a skill issue.
• Similarly, it was difficult for me to see which electrons were in which orbitals (and which were behind the atom entirely). I know you added the helpful arrows to show which electrons an orbital needs, but I could not really read them from far away from the atom.
  • Even if I did know which electron I needed, couldn't always aim it well when repelling. I suppose this too might be a skill issue, I should probably have been aiming at the outer edges of the orbitals, I would often aim more centrally, and sometimes hit the wrong one.
• The Konami code is really cute!
  • Made the game very serious.
• Finally, I feel like the rate of reactivity is a little punishing, at least at first for a new player. I think once you get further into a run and are combining atoms more frequently it may become less of an issue, but I lost many runs before I even combined a single atom.
  • Possibly, again, a skill issue related to me aiming the electrons poorly.

And that's pretty much all my observations on this one! I hope this comes off as constructive and not negative! I think this one is a really creative idea and seems like a very ambitious project for a game jam! I think the biggest shortcoming of the game for me personally is that it sacrifices visual clarity for visual style, to the point that I'm doing worse at the game because I find it hard to see things. The visual style was quite nice! But at the same time not being able to see what I'm doing sometimes was frustrating.

Have a wonderful day and good luck in the jam!

wow wow wow i love the visuals ehehe their so cool

im sorry my comment quality just dies the more of these i rate

This is such a cool concept. I struggled a lot at the start because I didn’t realise that the game was 3D (For some reason I though I was zooming in on the atoms), but the controls still felt awkward even after I got used to it.