The TP, AM upgrades are only "horribly inflated" if you change the "Buy Multi" setting in the top left from "1" to 10 or Max. The costs do go up exponentially as you buy more, but the benefits also go up exponentially.
You can increase your DM production through Upgrades and Laboratory (Misc Upgrades tab), increase it a little bit through Talents, and I think Level helps a lot. To get level, get exp. To get exp efficiently, go to a level where you can one-shot the mobs. I get to 10-30M DM when I leave the game on for a while.
Does the minus button really work? I put all my points on something and the rate improves. I take all my points away and the rate doesn't get worse. It somewhat seems like it's based on Max(history) instead of current points. Thinking of Leadership in particular, but other things are similar.
I'm still rather early in the game, having hit Towns for the first time last night, but one thing I really appreciate about the game is that "what is important" changes repeatedly. There was a time when Factories provided most of my income, but Houses were still important for that, and a time when I absolutely would have reset for 10x my current gems. Now, I want to do long runs to get the benefit of a growing army of lawyers, and later I'm sure this'll change, too. Great game, SFSM!
I played this game because I played your other game and it was great. I see you made two great games (or at least great starts in this case) over just a few months. PLEASE keep going, and if you put a way to buy something (non-necessary) into a longer game, I will be giving you money. You're worth it!
I was able to prestige 3 minutes into the game, with just a few Item 1 and one Item 2. Doesn't do me much good, but as the others have said, it could use some features to make it fun.
Is there any way you can write the save game file such that it does not get wiped when you update the game? Sure, my item's function might get changed, but I was really enjoying the playthrough that your update cancelled. Looking forward to my next run but it would have been nice to continue that one.
I remember the good old days, back when the wizard had that item that let her improve her hand or disrupt the enemy's hand, instead of the "I give up all hope, let's just redraw my cards" equipment!
May we please have hotkeys to switch tabs? Alternatively show the cost of up/down when you hover over a label, and then upgrade on the right half of it, downgrade on the left half, so we don't have to switch tabs so much.
itsacpl, don't poo-poo upgrading yet. When you get the expansion, you don't lose the previous location. Drop down in the top right corner allows you to go back and forth between the places you have unlocked. You can upgrade cards and Ascend for gems in each realm separately.
I just noticed that the game doesn't even claim to be an Idle game. Its only tag is "management". Might want to consider updating the name in the next patch!
Would you mind changing the text color at the bottom for either me or my foes, so that they're different? That or change the background color for the line, so I could more easily tell which way the action was going? Thanks! Really enjoyed my first 5 minutes in the game!
 "Restaurant Idle"){kind=icon}
 "Conquere the World"){kind=icon}
 "Epic Starfighter Pilot Legacy"){kind=icon}
 "Ordinal Markup"){kind=icon}
 "Legal Tyrant Idle"){kind=icon}
 "Boss Must Die"){kind=icon}
 "OutaDark"){kind=icon}
 "Idle Neutrons"){kind=icon}
 "Poker Quest RPG"){kind=icon}
 "Idle Labels Puzzle"){kind=icon}
 "Creature Card Idle"){kind=icon}
 "Idle Pins"){kind=icon}
 "Incremental Adventures"){kind=icon}
We should be able to make it not wipe your playthrough for most updates. Sorry about that, it was an accident and we overlooked it.