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You know, while playing another round of this game, I was going to apologize. I'd barely acquired one of those divine creatures, taking up all but two 9-point cargoes, then came up against a boat with 9 cargoes and was defeated. It wasn't worth it to acquire the divine creature because it took several of my cargoes, setting me up to lose the very next encounter. This is why I'm angry. I expect the game to be fun and playable, not a submission to an RNG that I pretend is something more with the bouncing characters, the ship, and the interactions that are meaningless because the RNG is all that ends up mattering.

Have you ever played Monopoly? Have you taken the time to understand why the board is set up the way it is and why there are two dice? 7 is the most commonly rolled number and the most common space to land on is Jail, so that orange set with spaces 6, 8, and 9 spaces away from Jail will be the most strategic set to get, especially since houses and hotels cost $100 each, not $150 or $200 like further toward GO. And they're valuable enough to make a big difference. You can watch YouTube videos on strategy for winning and WHILE IT'S STILL SOMEWHAT BASED ON CHANCE, giving everyone, even less-skilled players a chance to win, IT'S ALSO STRATEGIC, since knowing how things work makes a big difference when chance works in your favour. There are patterns that would suggest Monopoly is actually a thoughtfully designed game.

Have you put any such effort into this game? Because putting that kind of thought into balancing the game might make it more enjoyable and encourage people to try to get better. I thought it was common for game makers to think about this stuff, but I don't think you really have. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm missing something. But why would I put in more effort to try to figure it out if I have no reason to believe it will do any good?

You sound like a nice person. Despite my frustration and obvious contempt, it's not my intention to be mean to someone who doesn't deserve it.

Good luck. This game is addicting enough that I'm going to have to willfully steer clear of it so I don't renew my conviction that it's seeming shortcomings are inexcusable.

Okay. Maybe you're right. Maybe I went too far. So... am I wrong in suggesting this game is somehow unfairly difficult, even to understand? That solving "puzzles" that are really barriers to playing the game or understanding what's going on seems in the context of a game unfair? It's just a game. But... I really wish I could enjoy the game, that winning the game was more dependent on my choices and actions and less on mere chance or trying to understand what's going on with puzzles that seem rather arbitrary.

Am I wrong in expecting the creator of this game to take this into consideration? Even accusing the creator, angrily, of being unfair? Perhaps the misunderstanding or lapse in capacity or judgement isn't actually my fault but the fault of the creator. And maybe as some random person on the internet, he's unlikely to take my comments to heart but see them as someone who is angry that they didn't do a better job or weren't more considerate.

Generally, being nice isn't a solution to problems so much as a way of coping with them. And I don't respect it when I try to enjoy a game and it's actually the creator who stuffs what seems so promising a concept with irritating reminders of all the stupid stuff I'm trying to escape about the real world.

I'm afraid I don't have a lot of sympathy for players or creators that don't seem to want to do things right. But I think you may be right. I went too far. See, when I play a game, it's an escape but one that I try to enjoy with intense focus. I'd very much enjoy this game if winning and losing were dependent on my abilities and I could improve, but that's not how I see this game.

If I'm angry and bitter, it's because I care or cared enough to be. If someone wants to turn my time at play into a reminder of my frustrations with the world, okay, and a part of me feels free to comment as if they have instead of focusing on particular things like I'm naive enough to believe they're worth mentioning given how much this game seems to set players up for failure instead of progress or winnable challenges (though perhaps with persistence and work).

I gotta say that this is a frustrating game to play. I only started playing in the last day or two. Did it used to be easier? I don't understand where I might be going wrong in my strategy. I think it's just luck, which takes a lot of fun out of the game. Also, sometimes I agree to things I don't understand, like trying to bribe a ship but ending up giving away my spice and it not being enough then finally fighting at the disadvantage of not having most of my spice.

When I'm given the option to select letters to spell things out, even when I get a word, it won't do anything most of the time. How come RAT doesn't do anything? Is there a pirate theme? Is it "fun" for you to keep players guessing in such a broad way that it's more like you're making fun of them desperately playing your game?

What is that guy with the weird lettering? Does it say anything? I tried flipping it upside down by rotating my screen. I also tried looking in a mirror at it.

You know, maybe you don't know what fun is. It's not that a game should be easy, but a game shouldn't really put a player at the mercy of the mechanic and RNG. And you leave so many misunderstandings in this game that I wish you were trapped in this game so I could sink your ship. That I would play again and again.

But all this stupid stuff where you don't explain anything as part of a "puzzle" that costs any playability in the game? Are you kidding me?

I hope the next time you play a game, it's created by racists and fascists who hate you and lure you into wasting your time guessing at what's going on while you just keep getting older. That should be lots of fun for someone, though maybe not you.

I had to look up Virtua Racer to see what you were going for. This is suprisingly good as a recreation, given what you have to work with. But I'm afraid this Pico-8 thing is just too limiting. For any game. It looks to be a compromise between NES and Atari 2600 graphics but with a better colour palette. All that dithering makes it difficult just to look at the game, never mind concentrate on the road. But you did a great job of making it work.

Good game but hard. I don't last longer than a minute or two.

I believe so, but should it be? Such a demanding game for what? Graphics and details? I can play Shell Shockers, a FPS, for a while before my fanless Chromebook heats up enough to slow things down. Why wouldn't I be able to play this game with responsive controls from the start? It doesn't make sense unless there are layers between my inputs and what happens that need a much faster processor to compensate for. I can also play Smash Karts just fine for as long as I want, and that is a MUCH more complex game than this! This game's action is less complex than a clicker game. It's basically high-definition 3D for dodging meteors. I imagine it could have been made in a program that adds a lot of overhead to the final product. Shouldn't it run better on modest hardware? To each their own, I guess.

I have a GB more than that when only running Diagnostic. Perhaps you have extensions or something else running.... Or, you have Google Play activated and it's sucking up system resources. I don't. It slows down more important, efficiently written things like browser games.

This is a great little game, very challenging, but after watching a walkthrough at 2x speed, it really does seem like all the puzzles you have to solve don't accomplish a lot except getting you through one screen and onto the next. It's great that there are these difficult puzzles that take brainpower to solve, but maybe there should be more of a sense of progress and discovery, not just difficulty, even frustration.

Here are the tags as listed under More Information: Action-Adventure, Fantasy, LGBT, Magic, Meaningful Choices, Medieval, Romance, Story Rich, Text based, Twine Know what Action-Adventure means to me? Lots of action and adventure! And it seems that this "interactive novel" is a bit light on the interaction and a bit heavy on the novel or whatever this writing is! Should something like this really be put alongside the many other Action-Adventure games? Are they really the same? Is this really a "video game" when compared to something as slow-paced as the ones that played in SCUMM? Doesn't this website have other areas than video games to put stuff like this? The "genre" is Interactive Fiction. Maybe since that defines it more than "video game", interactive fiction shouldn't be in the same category as classics like Asteroids and Centipede, or Tower Defense and Racing games.

As for being high on my opinion of myself, I am. Especially compared to people like you who have very low standards for themselves and the world around them. Are you enjoying the world? Come just in time for the big finale full of fire, smoke, and brimstone? It's all I can do to remind myself that I'm not like the rest of you, wallowing in your self-absorption as you childishly complain that the world is not what you expected or were promised. It's because of low standards and a willingness to conform to problems and the culture that nurtures them with support for low prices at businesses that exploit even more desperate people that we have global warming, extremely violent crime punished with relatively light prison sentences (Don't want to subject mass murderers to cruel and unusual punishment!), and people like you who can barely articulate cliches in response to rational yet light commentary that EVERYTHING is going wrong and we're in for a nice, big CRUNCH with the rich and powerful on one side and a bunch of crybaby losers on the other.

How does anyone get so deeply involved in writing such a long-winded game that they lose perspective on what potential players want? It doesn't really matter. I just feel that in spending so much time on creating some stupid character that I don't actually get to "play" outside of a multiple choice at the end of a wall of text is unrewarding and shows contempt for my time. Much like trying to reason with someone with so little to offer that emojis are how they think.

... You know what "screams" turn-based? That all I'm doing is taking "turns" making choices, right from the character setup to the end of the first wall of text.

I hope you read yourself into a coma, since you're so complacent that it would make little difference to you and be one less comatose-walking person to tolerate as human when they refuse to live up to the reasonable expectations of a human. Please enjoy the entertainment mass-produced for the masses. Rewatch Avatar, why don't you?

Okay. I kind of think interactive novels should have a category of their own, though. If the main part of the game is reading and making choices, especially multiple choices, it's closer to those old choose-your-own-adventure things, which used to be physical books with several endings. Comparing that to a board game or video game seems a bit odd, even unfair. At least with text-based adventures like Zork, you type in commands and there's a reaction instead of a great length of text to read AFTER spending seemingly a lot of time considering a character's look and abilities. I'm not used to them and my biggest disappointment with any game is that the tutorial and setup sap all my enthusiasm before I even get to play or a chance to enjoy any forthcoming game. Good luck to the dev. I'm sure it took a lot of effort to do this, but there's a much greater burden on the quality of writing and, in my experience, great writing is much rarer than decent video games.

I've never "played" an interactive novel, but I didn't think this "game" qualifies as a game if I don't get to play it. Reading someone else's writing when it's not very good isn't worth creating a character for, is it? Perhaps the creator is so high on their opinion of themselves and their writing that spending so long to "create" a character that's invisible or only appears in words on a page isn't really worth it. They're self-deceived and think others should spend extra time filling out a questionnaire only to make them read and read and read some more. I'm done. If I want to read, I'll find a book or a reputable publication. I wanted a turn-based game with a good story, not a bunch of text with a basic background and a bunch of questions to answer about a character that's invisible.

Found the settings! This should do nicely!

Thanks guys! I will check that out. It would make an enormous difference!

I might like this game if it had auto-targeting and autofire so I don't have to aim with one hand and move with the other. It's tedious for a game that's a simple, overhead shooter with so many simple enemies. This isn't a first-person shooter where I'm doing a lot of aiming.

Perhaps, but I've seen this game played on YouTube recently and it was... tame. I wish all the best to anyone enjoying this game, but if I can't get a sensation of speed AND control, it's not much fun for me.

I didn't unlock any characters. I think the time in rounds it takes to upgrade "new" upgrade options makes it not worth it. I can imagine Assassin being eventually useful, but given you made upgrading targeting/accuracy a liability, I don't trust you to be considerate enough and it's too much effort and focus to try to figure out a simple tower defense game. I only came to check out the comments one last time to see if anyone had gotten so much further than me and to perhaps find out how. I'm not interested anymore. I don't understand why a dev would make a game that was so difficult and unrewarding to play that it actually turned into a bit of a bummer once I'd invested enough time and energy into it.

Okay. I'm ready to rate this game.

This game feels stupid. If I focus on targeting, I won't have enough power or speed to hit anything and prevent being destroyed in the meantime. It's a bit stupid because if it takes five or six upgrades to get 100% accuracy, I have little speed or power or anything else. I did choose the multicaster instead of regeneration to start this time but because I was so concerned about survival, I didn't take any upgrades after that. Think about it: If you were a marksman with a bow and arrow or a gun, would accuracy be more important than power and speed? YES. By starting with such terribly accuracy (an unbelievable 0%), you've really crippled the game from the start, giving new and experienced players alike a handicap to work against, and it turns out this handicap at the start keeps them handicapped for the rest of the game, since if they do upgrade accuracy, they're not upgrading anything else that actually kills enemies! And you've made it SO BAD that if a player chooses targeting/accuracy whenever presented with the option, they'll die because they're not shooting enough weak fireballs or the few fireballs they do shoot are too weak!

To make a game challenging, you shouldn't just give players exactly what they want so they don't even have to try. But there is a difference between making a game challenging and taking all the fun out of it by making it an exercise in nonsensical desperation, which YOU set up. I think you may have made this game so "challenging" that you've almost begun to border an antagonistic with a hint of sadism. You do understand that this is a game, right? Did you want this game to be fun and enjoyable? Did you want players to want to play your game? Do you want them to get any positive feedback or sense of accomplishment in playing? Then maybe allow them to progress in the game without repeating the same stupid steps that you made necessary only to find that they weren't balancing out more relevant steps because you'd started them off with 0% accuracy/targeting and dealing with that crap seemed compelling enough not to yet worry about stuff like attack speed and power.

This is even before concerning myself with any of the "extra" upgrades available to my IF I earn enough "embers" to purchase them, their differing levels, and the subsequent upgrades made available. How useful and "fun" is any game where such a large part of the strategy is to cut out 80% of the upgrades and control things so what I'm doing is simplified enough that I might actually be able to focus on KILLING the enemies?

Maybe you haven't focused enough on making the game fun and focused too much on making the game difficult. Personally, I hate modern Mario games for being cartoonish and for making it too easy to play and win. Classic Super Mario gave you a finite number of lives and you had to discover how to get a much larger number. You also had to learn how to take shortcuts if you wanted to win the game quickly, but if you went through all the levels, there were only pauses and timing to worry about, and if you died once, you didn't start over completely because you had more than one life.

If I die in your game, I have to start over, crippled again, and up for the same disappointing, time-consuming, slow action that's like a never-ending preamble to something that never happens. Losing this game should be my fault because I actually made bad choices, not because your choices as the game developer were so restrictive and so counter to the interests of players, that you've actually set up a greater way to make the game more difficult and less fun with UPGRADES that are worth less than the upgrades available by default, crowding out more useful options!

Why don't you figure out what kind of game you WANT this to be? Is this game at least fun for you? If I'm not mistaken, Mario Maker makes creators complete their levels before they're allowed to upload them for others. If playing your game is nearly as unpleasant for you as it is for me, maybe you should consider changing it so that I'm not sent back to grade 1 because the sex ed aspect of Physical Education turned out to be a written exam instead of a hands on one. That's one metaphor for what you've done with your game. You've made me think and try so hard for so little reward that I'm actually a bit angry with you for turning a game I found addicting into one filled with the less pleasurable kind of dick moves.

I'd like to point out that, after going through all possible upgrades (or as close as I got to finding all of them through resetting then exploring each thread with 27000 embers) that regeneration, multicaster (and its connected upgrades), and possibly critical strike are the only ones that seem worth investing in at this point. At least that will give me three good options to choose from at the outset of a new game, and I can choose regeneration to start and the others later. While strategy might be part of any good game, in a tower defense game, it seems just a little out of place to be able to buy so many different upgrades that might interfere with getting useful upgrades, making the game LESS playable and LESS enjoyable.

Not trying to sound mean or ungrateful. I'm still playing because I see a way to do better, get further, and gain the sense of accomplishment playing video games gives me :-)

Yeah, you know, I don't like that buying these upgrades on a webbed map crowds my options so much. Ever play Endless Waves Survival? You can actually choose in that game what potential upgrades you'll have for each of Rogue, Sorceror, and all the other options. For me, I chose to reduce which upgrades were available as a strategy to ensure I had access to the best upgrades and that they weren't crowded out by upgrades that weren't very good. In the experimental version of Wildfire, you actually make me earn embers to pay for upgrades that lead to upgrades that are unknown to me and then, when I have my first chance to choose just ONE of these, you give me an ever-unpredictable (depending on the number of upgrades I've bought beforehand) selection of only three of them AND have removed the ability to refresh them to get other options. If I do choose one of them, it's going to be in the upgrades for the rest of the game, crowding out potentially more useful upgrades. I might be forced to choose an upgrade I didn't really want that will follow me around with more options. For example, I chose Assassin in my most recent game, but it turns out it only comes into play when an enemy has 2% or less of their energy left! How useless is that? If I have an enemy with 200 HP to start, they'd have to have 4HP or less for Assassin to be "executed". If they started with 600HP, it would only help with 12HP or less! Did I just blow a PINK upgrade that could have been used for Regeneration that gives me 5HP per second (and much more when the game's sped up) for a measly 12HP attack advantage when a silver upgrade could have gotten me a greater attack of 10HP that would be repeated many times depending on attack speed? And how many upgrades of Assassin or its associated upgrades would it take for it to be useful? Does an additional pink upgrade mean enemies can be executed if they have an additional 20% of their HP for a total of 22% HP? And this is after spending embers to upgrade assassin to allow it the potential to execute enemies when they have 50% or less of their HP. Maybe Assassin does have some useful advantage in the game, especially the later levels, but this is only one of many upgrades that can crowd each other out of the options/upgrades instead of actually enhancing the gameplay for those who've PAID for them ahead of time!

If you're making me pay for upgrades, I want them when I start, not just offered as options as I go that replace the options I didn't pay for but still need every bit as much. Assassin, for example, doesn't properly replace attack, attack speed, or bullet, yet I have to choose it INSTEAD OF them as I go. It's mildly infuriating to spend so much time and focus on getting these upgrades if all they're such inadequate replacements for the core options of the game, which I still need to succeed!

So... I'm glad you allow a reset option. I'm probably just going to choose Regenerate or the most direct path to it, and avoid Assassin until, in playing many matches, I can see that I actually have use for it. When I have to put this much time and attention into sort of carefully playing a game that is basically tower defense, it takes a lot of fun out of it. I think you're the one who should be putting in this kind of effort to ensure those who want to take the game seriously and get into doing their best in it don't find good reason to take it so seriously that they have to kind of work against the way you've set it up, like you're opponents.

You get my drift. I'm going to play one more game, but I'm resetting the options and carefully selecting which ones I want, anticipating how all the other options and upgrades might interfere with my ABILITY to do well in the game later.

I think I'm going to reset my upgrades and carefully choose three ones that I actually want to appear at the beginning and throughout the game, because it seems that some of those upgrades, which I'm seemingly obligated to activate to gain access to further upgrades, are less useful and actually narrow the selection of useful upgrades I might have access to between rounds, even if I refresh each one (which by the way was a great thing to include, a no-cost, single refresh for each option). I'll try something different this time, but since using Vampire last time was far less useful that Regeneration would have been and was the previous game, and I died probably less than 10 rounds (Why get rid of round numbers and use hours and minutes? Now I have a non-standard, less-straightforward way of tracking progress? Hours and minutes? Do I have to figure out how long each round is? Does it vary depending on how long I take to finish a round? Should I multiply the length of a round or perhaps divide how "long" I've played by the time it takes per round?) into the game, which is disappointing. Now I have Assassin, Freeze, and Orbital Flames. Not sure if I should keep trying different things or try to get what I think I want. And look at that! No refresh option for these options. Tsk. And I liked that so much for the rest of the game ;-)

I just noticed, after selecting Vampire at the beginning of a new game, losing some HP then gaining in back through Vampire, that I now have 982.05/1000 HP. I suppose precision and not losing the tiniest portion of HP gained is important, but it kind of gives me the impression that I also lost 0.95 HP at some point, maybe. Perhaps rounding is more aesthetically pleasing and draws less attention to itself and is less distracting when I quickly check where I am at HP-wise in the middle of a game before I choose an upgrade or assess what I should focus on next.

At last I've tried the web/HTML experimental version and, indeed, bullet speed plays a real role. I'm slightly annoyed that attack speed and bullet speed aren't tied together as one, though. It seems while attack speed on a single target can be quite good, the biggest pause can be in changing targets, which increasing bullet speed lessens. I've only played two games of it so far, but I learned a bit too late the second time that I wasn't getting the DPS I wanted because my bullet speed was too low.

Also, if I'm giving critical feedback, I'm not sure how I feel about the... Bestiary. While it seems like a good idea for reference, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't learn about the (new) creatures I was currently fighting in the middle of a game. It just seems like it would be more timely if I could see it as I go and not wait until I lose (or is there a way to interrupt my match, return to the campsite and... see? See how weird that would be?) before I can get the useful information.

Actually, as far as buying abilities between rounds, like regeneration (I love regeneration in games), while I like to upgrade, it seems I can't know ahead of time the web of upgrades. It's painful enough to spend what points I've earned on upgrades I'm not interested to see what it leads to without it leading to another upgrade I'm not interested in. Do you think it would serve your interests as well as mine to give some sort of preview or warning of what upgrades lead to what upgrades? Or, maybe, you could make all upgrades available and price them differently based on their value. Saving up for a better upgrades seems better than wasting money getting to upgrades I wasn't going to be interested in.

I guess that's all for now. I'm going to play some more.

Oh. And there doesn't seem to be that "problem" with the projectiles/bullets/fireballs outpacing the impacts or impacts being skipped. That was REALLY bad in the non-experimental version. Maybe you should consider updating it so people like me who apparently need a bit of prodding to get on Discord to try the experimental version aren't so discouraged that they'd think or say the game was "ruined" by this seeming flaw in the most public-facing web version :-)

EDIT: Actually, as far as the upgrades you buy with embers, I got plenty of Embers during my second... match? I can't remember if I just played another match. No, I had over 20000 embers so it wasn't "painful" to explore the upgrades. It was great, actually. I found the Vampire upgrade that I thought you might have replaced with regeneration. And a bunch of others. And this time when I play, I'll know to use the bullet speed upgrade (I'm still new to it!) and get much further with more embers. If I had a phone... this would be one of the games if not THE game I'd be playing most on it.

I understand. Like I said, I'm on a Chromebook. While I doubt I could sideload via Android on a Chromebook, perhaps I could activate Google Play on my machine and at least give a better, more up to date version a shot. Wildfire really is addicting. I really wish I could play a version that performed as intended and expected. So I will likely try the version I can get through Google Play. And, when I do, I will likely come back here and tell you how it went :-)

EDIT: There's an updated version for the web? Hm. Maybe I will try Discord, the one platform I find least user-friendly, at least as far as finding anything goes.

I probably should have mentioned this sooner. I'm using a Chromebook and so I can't download, install, and play the latest version off Discord. I've also found Discord frustrating, at least as far as searching for groups or other content. It's weird that way. I'll try the web/HTML5 version again, though. I don't understand why I'd get this unusual experience, though, unless the browser version isn't as good as the Windows version. You gave a warning at startup and suggest the Windows version, so there's that. On the bright side, I do believe if it were working as expected it would be an extremely addicting game.

I'm sorry but after my recent realization that bullet speed actually decreases the number of impacts per bullet, it sort of ruins the game for me. I was already avoiding the random selections last night to avoid increasing bullet speed, but today using them again in accordance with what you said just made it so much worse again. Imagine upgrading bullet speed and the bullets outpacing impacts. That's what I believe is happening. I'm not going to rate this game. I hope you fix it so that maybe I'll find it again and enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed, with the upgrades working properly.

Actually, I'm playing right now, and the problem may not be accuracy so much as projectiles don't land. It's like there are more projectiles coming down than there are ones landing anywhere. It's like half or more of them make no difference and do nothing. Maybe bullet speed doesn't affect accuracy so much as outpace impacts or the rate of impact. Maybe with slower bullet speed, more bullets actually hit targets. And with higher bullet speed, some or most impacts are "skipped". It's a real problem and reduces the effectiveness and enjoyability of the game. I hope this helps, as this game is actually quite addicting. It would be much more addicting if upgrades didn't degrade the effectiveness or performance of the gameplay, though.

By the way, I stayed up until 4 am last night playing this game, I found it so addicting. I had to realize it was stupid to stay up later to get myself to go to bed.

Well, thank you, but it did seem when I was playing and increased the bullet speed that I was missing A LOT. I think bullet speed was at x12 and it's like the bullets landed a split second after they should have.

After I obtained 100% accuracy, I increased the bullet speed to x12, but it meant I was missing the targets, oddly by some sort of delay. Why have separate stats for attack speed and bullet speed, especially if increasing one of them negatively affects accuracy? I'm using the HTML5 version. Is that why this game doesn't work properly when I do this? Now I hate bullet speed, not knowing what the point of it is if my attack speed isn't increased and the damage isn't increased. It's like having a faster bullet without any benefits of having a faster bullet. Quite the opposite, actually, since for some reason an increase in bullet speed makes me miss quite a lot despite having 100% accuracy.

You know what? After being open to playing again based on a previous comment and reply to my own, I see that you're a bit over-the-top with your feedback and not especially helpful. Too bad. Enjoy your unfiltered playing of a game that warrants such indiscriminate praise from you.

Okay. Maybe I'll try it again sometime. However, you have my initial, mostly unfiltered reaction, and that may be more helpful than the nice response I have later. When I seek out a game to play, it's to be diverting and fun, not really nice or tolerant or even open minded. It's to play. Anything I put in I hope to get rewarded for. Anything that sort of slows me down or makes me think about the game at least momentarily takes away from the enjoyment of actually playing the game.

Final Fantasy classics? At least grinding in "turn-based" RPGs, I level up and there's a wide variety of items.

Actually, you know what? If it weren't for the almost 1-second lag between cursor key input and response in the game, this would probably be fine. It looks fine, but the lag kills the playability or enjoyment for me.

This looks like a simple game, in principle. Doesn't it strike you as a bit strange that I can play Asphalt 9 through Google Play or Facebook and it'll run well, yet this game is pretty much unplayable?

I only played the tutorial but I gotta tell you that the "R" I'm supposed to press and "A" look so similar that it took a few moments to understand why "A" didn't work. It really doesn't help that something so straightforward would be any source of frustration during a tutorial.

I looked at your strategies but it's just not worth the effort at this point. I think you neglected to say that what you put in the deck by what you play might also influence the outcome. If every time I get a pier, I play it, I put a lot of islands in the deck, which I'm likely to get as I spend money on cards but which won't make me money, so I should hesitate to play piers if I want something that will make money. I played this game again a few days ago and got a lot further, at least to population 70. But I can just bring a YouTube video up and see others finish the game. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If I have to be careful how I stack the deck just so I can piece together a rudimentary village, it's no fun. I also took the time to play Micropolis or SimCity classic and realized I'm so over it. I don't care about building a city of large population using the same old strategies. I just don't care anymore. And I think the devs of this game may have overlooked the pleasure that can be gained from playing that is countered by thinking about elements that are at least somewhat out of their control. After putting so much thought and care into how I play, running out of money or cards and getting a game over sucks. Hell, by the time you've played more than a few times, failing for unsatisfying reasons, finishing this game sucks. It's not rewarding enough if you've spent all the time and effort. At least with SimCity classic, as you learned the game, you got better results and it wasn't limited to some deck AND there was no game over to stop you from continuing to try where you were. You didn't have to start over if you didn't want to but you could if you wanted to start fresh.

This is a perfectly good game, if a bit basic. It's fun and straightforward yet challenging, so it has a lot of replay value, like an NES game. Thank you.

I can play the game just fine, but in a more typical shooter, the enemies and their fire move slowly. This one's all at once, and I completed it somewhat easily anyway. When I'm using cursor keys to move (as I prefer), maybe it shouldn't sort of start and stop in a way that makes it difficult to move exactly where I want to go, to avoid gunfire.

I've never made a game, but it seems inexcusable that such a potentially lengthy game would depend so very much on an RNG to be winnable. At worst, the randomness  should be limited the way a deck of cards limits a game of Solitaire. Why play any game if it's rigged? By RNG, algorithm, or anything else? If you're going to mix dice with strategy, you might plan the game so it works out in someone's favour, like Monopoly, so at least there is in fact a winner. To me, it's like you made a game somewhat like SimCity Classic but used an RNG to twist it so strategy won't help! Is this a strategy game? Then don't use an RNG unless we're given some power to work against it, like with using dice to get starting stats for characters in a tabletop RPG. At least it's possible to grind until the stats improve and enjoy the adventure! Your RNG creates unwinnable games, and it's not like you've offered us anything more that the ability to choose what and where to place what we get randomly. If you're not going to keep your game winnable, don't be surprised if players call it a game for losers!