The introduction of urban planning technologies, use of real world science/data sets, and the concept of this game is something I found really interesting. Reading up on the dev summary to learn that there was a deep consideration for real world data in Harlem is an incredibly exciting idea. Wanting to make a game that put a spotlight onto real world solutions is admirable!
But I say this with a heavy heart, the execution of these ideas was very flawed in this game's current version.
Visuals, Art, Music
I can't say there is much of an art direction unfortunately. It looks like placeholders and dev art. Visual changes are simple, a flat coloring of a building, and the change of a red to a purple to blue tile (from what I could tell, that was it). I reset the game several times, thinking maybe this was a visual glitch, or the textures weren't loading. I still hoping that is the case, because all I say where mostly grey buildings and trees over a red/blue tilemap.
I liked the music a lot though, very pleasant on the ears.
Gameplay
The concept of the game is honestly really cool, I can envision it being a good game about managing urban heat (almost like Frostpunk, but the other way around).
I played for about 10 minutes, resetting a few times because my movement speed would occasionally slow to a snail's pace and I wouldn't move very fair at all. But besides things like the floor having no collision, and UI issues, I didn't see the point in continuing after understanding what I needed to do.
The gameplay loop is: click "tasks" button, select card, put it on tile or building. Then, tile turns bluer. Repeat until entire map is blue, I believe. But there's no positive feedback, no reward, no visual changes besides color swaps, and its so hard to see the white font of the "stats" of the building that I can't tell what they're even saying half the time. The sheer size of the map made traversing through it a chore, given that the movement speed of the camera is not fast at all.
For a game like this, having a wide, overhead camera (similar to most city-builder games, for example) that allows me to select tiles across a wide area would have been much more preferable.
The cards themselves didn't feel like they had an difference in impact between each other. Either I placed a card on a building, or tile, and it turned the tile more blue. The most interesting thing about the cards for me, was learning about reflective asphalt. They were fun-fact flash cards for me, nothing more.
TLDR
The vision of the game was strong, reading through the dev summary made me excited and interested to see how they'd manage to make such a complex, systems-focused game. But, I know I am being harsh, but I can't say that this was much of a game. I got a gold medal almost immediately by pressing the card and randomly clicking elsewhere on the screen, I didn't even leave the "task" menu. I was generally confused, aimless, and felt like my actions were lacking purpose. The most meaningful thing to me was learning about the different technologies architects consider to deal with urban heating.
I'd be happy to replay this game if there is an update in the next coming days and change my review!