This feels like a prototype for a bigger game, more than a jam entry. Really impressive, congrats :o
There's two strategies, either you use pasta to do very long rounds and build up, or olives and cash-in quickly. Both are fun, the first one is a bit too safe imo. You were talking about wanting to work on the balance of the game, so here'e a few ideas :
- I feel like cards are too cheap, you can generally play every card you want
- you could have a card that increases your energy for your next hand, that could let you enable combos that are impossible with only 3 energy
- you could have cards that do something based on what you've already played this round (e.g. +1 money for every carrot you played this round)
- realistically, take inspiration from Slay the Spire and the likes lol (which I guess you were already doing). It's good to not just copy without innovating though
- also, basil is just pasta but worse, but that's not necessarily a bad thing : it forces the player to be critical about the choices they are given. To become better at the game, you have to learn to avoid the bad options