A really nice base to build on top.

The core loop is nice and rewarding. The initial balance is good and encourage to continue up to around 1h of content.

In it's current state I have two main issues: The main one is around the prestige mechanic. The current implementation where you get 1 prestige point as soon as you reach level 6 requiring a full reset hinders the game instead of helping it.

The issue is that after the first prestige one would want to go deeper in the cave, but there's no incentive on doing so as even reaching level 8 or 9 you'll still get only 1 prestige point. So any progress after level 6 is meaningless.

I feel more reward should be given to reach deeper caves.

The 2nd issue is around automation. The prestige perks are not so strong to allow to breeze up to the automation point, making each prestige super annoying. I would maybe suggest to allow to buy the automation update from the prestige shop to have it auto unloked on follow-up prestiges