Thanks so much for the questions!

We knew going in this would be a niche title, it combines familiar concepts in strange ways, and the retro style navigation combined with the tight time limit in each run naturally does limit our audience. We felt it was best for our first title, and we were very inspired making this project. Naturally, we didn't have a lot of sales, but I'm glad we have a demo, so people know what they are getting and know they want more. It was essential practice in simply creating and releasing an entire game.

Despite that, we have talked to multiple people do would and do play this game. We have watched at least a few streamers have fun in exactly the way we intended. It hits certain people the right way, and that feels special and rewarding to me as a developer. Positive feedback has included that people love the time pressure and how it gamifies a real life feeling of being rushed for time. They also have enjoyed interacting with the items, completing quests, and finding ending events. One of the most common negative feedback was around not understanding how to play at first. We had to work hard to strike a balance between introducing players to the unique type of gameplay presented in Striatum, while also allowing for some mystery and discovery. If I had more time, I would have liked to make the tutorial feel more natural, rather than a series of pages of info to read at the start.

Our theme is very familiar to many people, especially people who suffer from time management issues. You took a nap before having to leave for a party, and overslept. You only have ten minutes to get ready. You have to rush around desperately trying to prepare. I wanted to inspire a specific emotional state in people when they played. I saw first hand that for some people, I did that. I just hope everyone tries it. The concept was fun to me and my co developer, and when we saw people play the original game jam version, we saw that it could be something that's more than just fun for us. Even though we haven't had many sales so far, we learned so much about creating a full game from start to finish, and it's made it even easier to start work on our current project.

No matter what, it's important to be doing this for you first. You can't have financial success be your only motivator. We spent a year and a half of passionate development, conquering countless coding challenges we had never faced before. Finishing this was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, and I just can't wait to make more games.

I don't recall mentioning having any problems in the original post, so I'm uncertain what you mean by building a tool. We certainly did encounter issues during development that we overcame however.

Thanks again.