Very nice game idea, i would love to see you working on that more after the jam!

I am not sure if the picking up and throwing down tools is the best way to harvest, it would be cool if the harvesting was quicker so that you can spend more time on building - but thats just me, idk... :) I followed you, hoping for more ;-)

Conceptually, I like it. Not many tower defense games have you going out to collect the resources to physically craft your units. It's sort of a survival game/TD blend, which I'm here for. And then there's the gear system which I assume is supposed to be the main draw of the game and adds another layer of uniqueness. However, I felt like it was either under-utilized or under-explained. I expected  adding more gears to power up the turrets in some way but as far as I can tell they just serve as wires to activate the turret. And with no added benefit to the player for engaging with this rather confusing system, it just feels like unnecessary friction. And then  there's the resource gathering, which I did enjoy. However the map is also just way too big in my opinion and having them so spread out while given such a limited time to prepare kind of made it a headache at the same time. Lastly, I thought the controls were just kind of odd. It took me way too long to figure out how to even interact with items consistently or how to gather resources with the tools (I did think the bomber-man style of using the tools was quite cute when I got used to it though). The music was pretty good though, I thought it only kicking in at the 2nd wave was a nice touch. I quite liked the art as well. Overall, I think the game could really benefit with just explaining things a bit better and shrinking the map a bit. Not bad though :)

I had a terribly hard start with this game, clueless how anything works for the first couple minutes. Then I discovered the secret "2" dev tool that just gives you an instant win. After some time though, I started getting the hang of all the mechanics and I gotta say...

I absolutely love some of these gameplay mechanics. They are so interesting and innovative. The art is decent and the music is fun, but what this game lacks is more direction and maybe a tutorial. It's tough to understand anything at first, may be even tougher for others and they might drop the game sooner and give it a terrible score. I enjoyed the idea though! Congrats.

Edit: Oh, and i love the title. Lmao

The game started with "You win", on day 8, and a button for endless mode, which felt odd. I restarted just to be sure.

Your instructions say press ESC for the crafting menu, but I found that it opened with Tab. Since things were not working I started pressing random buttons and found that the number keys do various things, including giving lots of resources, which is the only reason I played more to see what the game offered.

It was not clear how to play at the start. It seems like you have to be on top of something to pick it up, in which case you are almost just clicking on yourself after moving on top of them. I had moved near items to pick them up initially, and was not sure how close you needed to be, but it was much closer than expected for a use the mouse to pickup mechanic, and it felt inconsistent, like sometimes the player or enemies got it the way. Similarly, throwing items to use them was not initially clear, and took several tries to figure out things worked. The 2 layers could use some explaining. I found that the "generators" are on the main layer with the turrets, though do not spin themselves or look active. All the gears go on the second layer, and do spin when connected to a generator. The turrets don't have any indication of when they are active or not. I do think that having the gears faded out is good to not clutter the screen. The second layer just needs some carity as to why it exists. I would highly recommend taking some screenshots showing how things work, along with a better description on the game page.

The first wave comes too fast before you really have time to learn or build, though it seems that you do not lose anyway.  There looks to be an interesting game here, but it really needs some explanations and probably starting at an easier level with a chance to learn and build up.

I had some difficulty figuring this one out. Collecting resources involves clicking to pick up the tool, clicking to place the tool, then clicking again to collect the resource. The interaction range of all these clicks need to be real close to your character, and ends up feeling really clunky. It is hard to gather enough materials to protect your core. I did like the mechanic of placing your tool in a cluster of resource tiles and breaking multiple at once, but the resources often did not generate this way. I like the character sprite having a "holding" and "not holding" state. That was a nice touch. I like all the handmade art, and overall visual presentation. 

Turrets, the only way I can see to beat enemies, cost 20 gold. I could only get gold from beating enemies with my one preexisting turret. That turret was not enough to protect my core from the first two nights of enemies. The only option I had was to build walls, which cost resources. I had to keep rebuilding walls the first two nights to prevent damage before I could afford the gold for the next turret. By the time I got a second turret, I was almost dead. The next wave of enemies ended up being too much for two turrets. I am not sure if I am missing something, but the game seems impossible to make it past this point.

The game over screen is nice, but the noise that plays is a loud and unpleasant high pitched ringing that hurt my ears. There is no way to try again without refreshing the page. 

Uhhh cognitive stress was a good name cause you had me stressed lol.

Hey, thanks for letting me play and rate your game! I think there's good bones here for sure, but I found the mechanic of flying around and throwing tools to get your materials a little tedious, though that might just be a personal preference thing on my end. I'm also not sure if it's a bug or an issue on my side but I'm not getting any audio. I like the style of the cover image and think you could use that aesthetic more throughout the game too. A different background texture for the area where you are collecting materials might make it easier to see.