Click-bait style UI
First of all, love the game, love the dev team. They seem to really get the experience I like in particular and regularly implement it as if they were getting advice from me directly which is cool.
I had a couple of experiences with the UI that seemed like a step in the wrong direction.
- The countdown timers to dismiss pop ups.
- After the timer ends, rapidly clicking the button to exit the pop up opens the 'go to store' button just behind it.
You never want to hold your audience hostage. It breeds organism level hatred. It really colors the experience in deeply negative emotion that sticks. And it's completely avoidable. And turning the UI into a click bait trap is similarly flagrant toward the customer's desire to spend their free time on your product without being corralled. I really wouldn't make it a long term strategy.
