Hey Laser! Feel like the new one click system helps a ton with game pacing. I was able to get into a rhythm this time and get into a flow state trying to take out all the big tech buildings. I completed the tutorial and was trying to advance to the next zone but couldn't figure out how to get there. Game is still cutting off part of the game on the bottom and right side for sure. It made it so I still couldn't see energy remaining and clickable objects on the far right of the screen. Still like the pace a lot more and game is improving for sure, great job. 

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!

As usual I am starting fresh with the tutorial.

I like the new single click to move and activate the place you are going to. It really does make sense to immediately interact with the thing you clicked on when you get there. I haven't needed it yet, but one thought I had when reading the devlog about this change is to maybe add the use of Shift clicking to setup waypoints before starting to move, and then the final click, without Shift, starts the movement. This lets players have the best of both options. Most things can be done quickly, but when you want to preplan a route you can.

I like the new popup art, though maybe it could use a bit more left side margin/padding. For me, the disabled option is also very blurry and hard to read. I first noticed this when being sent to the Inn, with Sleep, and especially the "until 8 AM" text being blurred. Even when I came back at night the text was blurry. As I continued playing I found several times that text was blurry as if the option was deactivated, but I knew it should be available and clicking on it worked. So maybe this is not tied to being active, but something else?

After the Inn the tutorial still says to click twice.

I think the new Establish a building display looks nicer, however, when getting a free building it is no longer showing the base building cost. I will often try to maximize my value of the freebies and will check the building's cost as part of my decision of what to build free, so I can spend less when I have to pay for stuff. If playing enough I'd eventually learn them, but especially when staring a fresh run after a month I don't remember the costs. Not saying it is needed, but I do like having the info.

When a building was being constructed it covered up part of the progress bar of the building I was protesting at.

The new costs for using vehicles is an interesting idea, but makes the change to crowds problematic. If I am going around doing other things that don't need a crowd, such as picking up tokens, then having an extra cost to carry them with me sucks. I'd like an option to leave them somewhere. Maybe you could release the crowd back to their homes, but the next rally visit is free to get them back, and takes less time/energy. I'm not really sure I like that idea, but I used to love the vehicles, and now once I start gathering a crowd they become less useful and I'm debating turning off the auto-prompting. I'll need to think on the monetary costs now as I'd previously use them so much that now those costs would add up, even if small for each visit.

Back to a comment from above, when going past a bus depot I really wish there was a quick way to add waypoints before moving. If I am too close and only want to go just to trigger it on the way to get other tokens for a chain it can break the chain as I get the popup if I'm not fast enough to click somewhere else.

I beat BigRealty on day 6, with a final crowd of 50ish, though I rarely actually look at the crowd size number during play and only check the Loudness compared to the building I'm going after. The game kept playing and the number went down as I typed this before I looked back over I heard the sound of losing some, so don't know what the actual number was. The max Loudness I noticed being at was 7, with BigRealty's mas Defense being 8 at one point, but dropping to 4 when I finished the last branches that day. I'd previously dealt with all the branches, but was too low to deal with HQ at the time and after resting it had build up more.

The cost for transportation made me stop using it completely and turn off the auto-popups. I'd rather spend the money on buildings. In the past I'd always build one of these early. In the future they'll be much lower priority. I did more jobs at the Cafe this time for cash, usually doing the one for $1500. Even without the token pickup runs in a vehicle I ended at over 400 Fame, so money was more useful than Fame. I focused on building Residential, then Education and Safety. I also got a lot of Entertainment just based on the zoning, with that being the only Rating to reach Good. I only rezoned 1 area when 2 logistics ended up next to each other. Otherwise I'd just activate until I got what I needed somewhere. I got a few of the Loudness boosts, but always when I was low on energy and had to rest, resulting in them running out or disappearing before I could use them.

I only got 2 pieces of furniture this time, and the second one I kept forgetting about until I'd rested and left. I probably did this 3 or 4 times before I finally installed it. The max energy boost is nice, but I was always so focused on the next things to be done that it ended up being out of sight out of mind. You could make it more prominent, but I'd say it is fine as is. If people pay attention they get the reward. I did often run out of energy, so it is a nice boost, but also I was able to win with how I played, so the boosts are not needed.

Overall I did like the one click movement, but I also am so used to the old style that I often ended up fighting it by moving the mouse to a building in prep of arrival and clicking to activate the interaction, only for it to end up closing the automatic popup. Over time it will become normal. I still would like to have the Shift click for waypoints before movement, or some other way to temporarily toggle the mode as there were times that moving right away was annoying and got in the way.