Planets!

I can't read your instructions in itch.

The text is too close to the color of the background.

Looks like the game might have been fun

@Beebster Fixed that. I was using Dark Reader and didn't notice. Thank you.

I just got to read the instructions.

I was winning but didn't know why.

Maybe an update to the instructions would be good.

Your Itch.io page has black text on a dark background, so it's a bit hard to read
I only managed to get to level 12. Defuse :( I was getting through the levels mainly through some trial an error to see where things went.
I think this is game has good and interesting mechanics, it just is a bit hard to grasp. An undo button would be nice as well. Overall though, it seems pretty nice, nice sounds, nice polish. Good job!

Very ingenous, always impressive to see simple rules resulting in a complex game :) I especially like the swap mechanic. I'm also stuck on Defuse for the moment. Quite hard to reason about, it would be helpful to see a preview of where blocks would move next. Great game!

The Squeeze taught me to hate tan arrows that point right.

Really cool puzzle game! Some levels makes you really think on how to place the planets

Wow! Awesome concept! It fits the theme and has lots of gameplay potential :)

Graphics
The graphics look pleasing overall. There is a bit of inconsistency though, because the game has pixel art fonts and background graphics, however the rest of the game is higher res. 8/10.

Audio
Audio is solid. The feedback given from sound effects when planets collide, when you hover a potential slot on the map, when you restart the level. Feels polished due to these thoughtful sound effect implementations. I wish there was ongoing ambient music in the background, not just a brief tune when you win the level. 9/10.

Gameplay
I recognize a lot of game feedback/game feel while I play the game, which is necessary with a game like this where you're primarily interacting by clicking around on the screen. The audio effects, changes in UI scale when placing/hovering. Sound effects when you win or lose. Great job with this. I feel like the right-side list of planets with Xs on them can be represented in a more intuitive way, though. I still don't know what that list means. Regardless, 9/10.

Originality
Never played a game like this before. 10/10.

Theme
Sneaky use of our theme to implement it into a UI-based puzzle game. 10/10.

Overall score
9/10.

Really, really original game and very good puzzles. it took a bit to understand how it works but once you do it's awesome.

You've got some great puzzles out of a set of very simple rules! That's awesome!

I think the first few introduction levels might be too easy to really learn any thing from them. Putting things just in empty brackets and passing, really didn't help me to figure out how the game was meant to be played. So I had to learn the rules in later levels - which still worked fine. I just think you maybe can strip the first few levels.

Super interesting and fun puzzle game! Did you come up with the mechanics during the jam, or is this inspired by some other game? If not, very impressive!

Sounds are nice, visuals are functional.

I got stuck on level 12 (Defuse), probably because I don't understand the mechanics well enough. Some more intermediate levels, which force you to grok every possible interaction, would have helped there – but 14 levels is already quite an achievement for a jam!

Thanks everyone for playing! The comments are really helpful to identify mistakes and successes and maybe turn this into a full game.

I had a lot of fun creating it and want to keep exploring the idea, add planets with different rules, more feedback for the player, actually putting effort into the graphics, among other things.

@thomastc yes the idea is completely original, though I really like puzzle games in general (Myst-likes, Witness-likes, etc.) so those always influence me.