I sunk a lot more time into this game than I was expecting to. I feel like there's a ton depth and complexity to unlock here. But I think my brain is too small to make the connections. Some synergies and strategies seem obvious. Like putting the sun flower at the end of the chain of putting a safe above Charybdis. I discovered by accident that the clock can off set the timing of a chain when I put it near a washing machine but I couldn't figure any practical application of that. I did really enjoy this game but I feel like there's so much I'm missing out on. I appreciate the sandbox mode but I wish the game had a more guided approach in teaching some of the more advanced strategies.

Did also want to add that I really liked all the sprite art, music and animations. The only problem I had visually was that I struggled to move pieces around after placing them. A lot of times I would have to move all the pieces in front of one the one I actually wanted to move.

I like the concept, and I love the way they go “boo” when I lose. I found that funny.

Cognitive-wise, I struggled with the tutorial, because it has a lot of text to read, a lot of information to absorb. To me, it is okay to read one page of tutorial like this one. Once I got to the second, I skimmed. Once I got to the third, I simply skipped it.

I know how this sounds, probably. It might sound like I’m not trying hard enough. Like i have a short attention span and am embracing it, instead of challenging it. These two things might be true. But it is also true that interactive tutorials, short sentences, smaller sections of content between each set of instructions (instead of the whole page) and less information at once is proven to be easier to understand. A lot of information to take in at once is hard when you don’t have the real-life experience of knowing what it all is referring to.

Which is also why players tend to skip to the game itself.

It is a game with a lot of information and rules to take in. So I feel that it is the kind of game that would work better if the tutorial and instructions had more images to go with it and exemplify the concepts. There are some good boardgames with great manuals. The way they explain the rules ensures you can understand it better before playing. But they still take time and effort to read through, of course. There are boardgames I take days to read, because we are trying to learn the information. And still the first time we play is also like an interactive tutorial, because we need the manual to set it up and through playing need to keep checking the rules. So I suppose in a videogame there’s also the question about how long do you want the player to take to read the tutorial? And there’s also the risk of them losing interest / patience / focus as they read through it. What is also harder is that with a digital-only video game I can’t be playing the game and checking the manual at the same time, as we used to be able to when we had CD-ROMS and game boxes with great manual, or as we can do with boardgames.

I am glad that the game isn’t time-sensitive. I was scared it would be, because I thought I wouldn’t know how to play.

VISUALS:

There are a few problems with the visuals. Namely, especially, with the menu to choose a card after I lost the first level. Each card has its color but the text is in red and green and often with very low contrast. It scares me away from reading but now it’s not because of information overload (or at least not only). It’s because it’s physically hard to read.

But it does have some information overload as well, because I failed the first level, and before getting to try again and seeing how it works, I had to choose a card, and didn’t quite understand the sequence and narrative of things.

Although there is a sandbox mode. A sandbox mode is very helpful for cognitive accessibility, and a good complement to the tutorial, to help us learn. So I think I will quit and try again but start with the sandbox.

For now, these are my first impressions. It looks like a great concept and I’m sort of excited to understand it, but i think it has much polish to do to become less daunting cognitive-wise and also readable and usable from a visual accessibility perspective.

This game was amazing, I played for almost a whole hour and had to peel myself away. I spent a long time trying to break the game and make an infinite loop with a crazy, complex circuit... and then it turns out all I needed were two windmills and a couple non-touching receivers! You did a great job designing very different types of ballerinas, and the roguelike shop was a good way of trickling them to the player. I did feel like a chain of receivers was OP; I did spend the first few rounds of one run just buying as many of them as I could, and then ending on two flowerpots. Idk how much the quote increases by the longer you play, but I was doing pretty well with that strat.

Also, having a sandbox was a fantastic decision. A lot of playtime was spent in there getting familiar with the mechanics and trying different circuits I would've been too scared of exploding in the main game. Very well done!

It never clicked for me. I played around with it for maybe half an hour, also in the sandbox, but I'm still confused about how it works. I tried replicating the setup with the clock from the tip, but I didn't understand how to place them without breaking. I'd have loved a few examples on how the various pieces are meant to be used.

YES this idea is very good! very cute, enjoyable, satisfying compared to lots of incremental stuff out on the market cus i am doing something i am placing stuff on a chessboard to get max result and most importantly i recive the result by watching a show!! i think it's really hopeful if you are to push this further. very good job!!

Very creative! It definitely took some brain power but I really like the concept. Great submission!!

NICEEE! First of all, I really respect that it's a very "smart" game. Honestly, i had a headache playing it, but the rules were well-defined, and I'm sure with more time and reading I could really get deep into it.

I liked the music! It wasn't tiring, which is a common problem with looping music. In general, all the SFX were well-made :)

The visuals were tricky. I think they start a bit weak, but by the time I opened the shop, they became not just good, but outstanding! I assume the menu design wasn't as much of a priority? A more polished menu would definitely help with that first impression, though. (Or maybe removal and add the options in-game?)

I'm surprised by how complex the systems are, but my personal favorite is the subtle humor and the character design. <3 

It's amazing how much you've achieved in a week only. It seems like a very complex puzzle game.

I really like it, especially the visuals.

The tutorial is kind of a text nuke, it would be cool if in a further update you would add an interactive tutorial.

Very beautiful game!  This type of game is not something I usually play, so I unfortunately do not have much insight on whether mechanic X or Y is fair or not.  This might speak to my lack of creativity here more than anything else, but I found myself making similar formations each round, so it would be useful if you kept the same pieces on the board each time, so you don't have to click and drag dozens of pieces over and over.  Granted, this strategy did not pan out for me in the end (turns out you can't mainly use the receivers in a single chain and expect to win), so I like the idea of tutorial stages that force you to use more pieces (the instructions at the start are quite charming, though).  Maybe another way to achieve a similar reduction in building time is to force the player to start over each round with limited receivers or limit the number of pieces they can move to the next round (before the shop).

This is probably my favorite out of all the games I've played in the jam. The mechanic is simple yet complex at the same time. It feels like there's so much room for different designs and expansions on the mechanic. Like challenge mode to get the most quota, or maybe change it up earning the most money. Puzzle mode, where the player has a bunch of pieces and must create an infinite loop or whatever. Even player made challenges would work. I really like it a lot. 
I only have 2 gripes with the game.
The first is the tutorial, but I'm guessing the tutorial is like this because of time constraints (mine was  the same tbh). Aside from that, I think it would be nice to have an option for a more standard font for the text in the tutorial, as it was actually a little bit difficult for me to read the tutorial.
The second is the sound effect of the explosion when I accidentally made the same rotation adjacent was a little too loud. It kind of jump scared me. It seems to be because each spinner destroyed produces the explosion sound. When multiple of them go off, because the sound is the same, it just gets amplified. I tested it in sandbox and it seemed to be the case. 

Overall, I really like this game.