Corporations suck!! Money'Surance Corp® especially sucks, so you're taking it upon yourself to hack the Money'Surance Corp® Tower™, steal money from the higher ups, and erase the debts of everyone subject to its monopoly.
Sounds like a good time to me.
DATA LOSS is a rather fast-paced "minigame" (itch's words for it, not mine) about switching between searching and infecting nodes. Infected nodes will infect other nearby nodes. Along the way, you need to avoid a bouncing security dot. You only have so many seconds and actions per game board. You'll be awarded money (and upgrades) for successes, and charged for uninfected nodes. Spend money on upgrades, game over at negative cash. Things get harder the further you go, all that good stuff.
I really like the concept. There's a pseudo-stealth element with the security dot, alongside planning how both my own search wave and the chain-reaction of infection waves will end up playing out - if I click here, will it end up getting noticed when it spreads all the way over there? The tight time limit leads to a fair amount of panic while the turn restriction wants me to play efficiently, and those two goals being at odds makes for a for some exciting bursts of play.
That being said, DATA LOSS may need a dose of balance adjustments. Some upgrades are simply broken - $500 for being on your last couple actions is incredible, as I can do that almost on cue spamming searches. On the flip side, suffers a bit from "lose more" situations - if I'm already struggling, I can't buy upgrades that might help me, a thoroughly tragic state in a game this difficult. I also wasn't very keen on the lack of "mercy invincibility" with the security dot, since it could lead to losing a brutal 8+ seconds in situations where I didn't really feel like I made an equivalently bad mistake. My crime deserving such a penalty was sometimes simply that the infection wave went further than expected.
I had 12 actions "remaining" at the end of this level, but I got significantly more money intentionally wasting them for the Close Call bonus. What felt like good play wasn't as rewarding as going for a stunt.
I enjoyed the music for a bit, but it could do with an extra track or two for variance. I appreciated the option in the visuals to change all the different colors the game uses. Not every game is minimalist enough to offer something like that, but as a game that could, it struck me as an incredibly good, accessible idea.
DATA LOSS, despite my misgivings, is a solid time as-is. Its compelling premise kept me playing through the difficulty, and despite the dose of randomness I really felt like I developed some skill in it as I went. With an update or two, this game could really shine as one of those "occasionally pick up and play" arcade-ish games.
I enjoyed it. DATA LOSS is a good game.