A fun game, which appears simple at first, but reveals itself to be quite the challenge! The crafting desk and the dragging and dropping reminded me a lot of Papers Please.
I thought the visual language used was very clear and instructive - the only thing that wasn't clear to me at first( and which caused my first game over :S )was that you had to keep clicking the triangle to get a triangle piece to appear. Perhaps that stands out as it's active, and the square and the cirlce are passive.
The music and sound effects were great too!
Really liked the particle effects for the square, and the fact that you couldn't keep it! That was a super interesting way to test the the player. Although the situation where the planet you arrive at doesn't have any squares, but you need them to craft whatever the alien wants, emphasises the issue I found with the game: sometimes you can't do anything. Whilst in those sitations I found myself just stocking up on shapes - which feels like it should never replace the main objective of crafting for the alien. It also means that when you've got no fuel, and can't craft for the alien, you've essentially already lost the game but have to wait for it (unless there's something I'm missing!)
But overall there's a very promising premise here, and with a few tweaks I think it would be awesome!
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Thanks so much for all the great feedback :)! You're not missing anything and I'm happy to read that the visual language worked :).
When the alien wants something you don't have, it can indeed feel frustrating. On the other hand, I kind of like the idea that it might make the player craft stars in advance, when they see squares :). Just stocking up might not be that fun though, right. And you are also right with the waiting, which I at least tried to kind of shorten when you're in space.
Good points, thank you :)!
The stocking up could definitely be a fun, if it was kept as something that gave multitasking an upper hand. However making it be the only way to get through some planets can feel a little unfair. So by making it an optional advantage, instead of a necessary solution, I think you'd get the most out of it!