im not very educated on the city-building type of games, so i wasnt sure what to expect going into this. i love point and click games, so that alone was great for the UI-side of things.
criticisms:
immediately looking at the main menu, it leaves a lot of empty space for seemingly no reason. id recommend expanding items to fill those voids, or overall rearrange the menu for a cleaner look. if it were me, id try centering the logo + start game + sound option buttons, but id add a global options button so that you do not need awkwardly floating text regarding gameplay options to the side. id also condense the web browser text into an individual line.
now, onto the gameplay itself. i began with the tutorials.
the basic tutorial was relatively straightforward. it was during the rally tutorial where things began to feel clunkier to me. the game has assets in a lineless, clean, vector style, while other assets seem to be 2d lined art. if possible, i would unite these styles more to make it feel less confusing and more direct on the art-direction side of things. for controls, i personally didnt like how everything needed a "double click to confirm", as it already took enough clicks to get to a location and open the menu already. that aspect felt redundant to me.
i also found myself confused on what was what and what my objective even was, so id clarify that and add some more explanations as well. this is a personal nitpick, but i found the energy system to be tedious. id walk around the map trying to find my objective, but once i got there, id be out of energy and would have to go back to rest. perhaps energy scaling with the players current level/advancement into the game could help this?
what i liked:
i enjoyed the bus/the transport options a lot! i found myself using them quite a bit. i also focused on building and rallying first before anything else. i enjoy looking for a deeper story within games, so even if this one was more focused on actual mechanics and lore, i liked what i derived from it. i interpreted it as the player is an activist in some form, fighting against bigrealty from taking over the local area with their mega-business. by utilizing protests, rallies, and community/neighborhood support, the game seems to encourage the player to fight and stand up for what they believe in against late-stage capitalism, and i appreciate that.
the overworld is colorful and wonderfully contrasted, i could tell what was a building vs a road, where i could walk, what i needed to grab, etc. the basic tutorial was also very solid and helped me progressively learn about the city-building aspects. i also liked the stat-managing side of things, where the player has to logically come up with a strategy to rally and take over the bigrealty lots.
overall, i know this is an alpha build, but i can see this developing into an even better game over time. im excited to see how development, graphics, and game mechanics continue to grow. i wish you the best!