i cheated... dragging the containers over the coins rapidly... made them change color... created a dam with the unused block... got my needed coins built up... and used the dam block to push the coins down as fast as i could.
I feel like having some on screen pop ups (how - to's) to explain what is happening would be beneficial to the user.
It feels very UNIQUE though! definitely a different game than i have played before! Good job!!!
@Erich_L
i came back and tried it again (left the tab open)... i too CANNOT for the life of me get a diamond to work... they just get stuck half way in the box*
I do actually think this is a decent idea, and i that you are on a good path to a very different game.... KEEP IT UP AND KEEP US POSTED!!!!!
GOOD LUCK! Keep the coffee flowing and the keys going!
i think @xyz had a great point about trying to highlight the entrances in some way...
personally i am all about lights/HDR effects right now in my 2D worlds, so my suggestion would be having some kind of directional light marking the entrances... AND if you wanted to put a "green light" for the IN side, and a "red light" for the OUT side... it would be slightly more intuitive IMO.
I have been working on the suggestions this weekend and the rotating UI component is the only one giving me a hard time. The issue I have is that if the rotate button rotates around AND I allow the player to move the components anywhere they want (to the far right or left sides for example) then there would be many situations where the rotate button gets hidden on the edge of the screen.
I agree my solution isn't immediately intuitive though.
Since it's a phone friendly then I guess better to have the boundary otherwise the block could go off screen (hard to get it back with your finger)
Show objectives and instructions at the beginning would help greatly. (In the beginning I didn't know what to do so I was more interested in clogging things up lol)
i have always dealt with that situation:
....by making a separate scene that contain the UI components...
....updating UI location relative to the node it is controlling....
....you can set the UI layout to change based off what part of the viewport it is in (button on left or right*)...
....then using a signal to inform the node of the changes made by the UI.
I'm sure there are better ways... but this has been the best way i have done it without unwanted consequences.
why not tuch with 2 fingers and rotate and hold to drag? since its mobile it should be possible
Update completed and uploaded!
For @kuligs2 , you can drag the screen around now without deselecting a component.
For @MikeCL , a UI pop up first level to explain the objective
For @xyz, a level 2 and a hard level 3. Also made the mouths of most components bend inwards for better emphasis.
For @REVBENT , pop ups for newly introduced components explaining how they work.
Also for @REVBENT and Kuligs2 : I made the Engraver bigger so that the coins don't so easily get stuck
Thanks so much guys for the suggestions. The only thing I didn't tackle that I probably should have is the rotate UI but... we'll see.
DJMaesen
Yes it's definitely possible. The problem for me is that it takes a ton of time to test because my PC doesn't have finger input. So to do that I would have to guess some code is right then fully export it to the phone... which I think for now is too much work for a game I want to actually finish. (I'm embarrassed to admit it took me like 15 hours just to figure out pinch to zoom in godot 3.5 that way).
Also thanks a ton Maeson for suggesting the input output shapes.
REVBENT If I understand you correctly then, if a component was on the side of the screen then they would rotate it halfway before the rotate image has to pop over to the other side. The user would then need to find it again and continue dragging. :
Erich_L
i suppose i was thinking the issue was the "rotation" button being off the screen when UI was to one side of the screen.
i am suggesting to flip the UI model when it is on one side of the screen vs the other to keep the button visible.
i am not sure off the top of my head if child containers or the parent controls that have a scale property... but setting that negative will flip the layout.
i would suspect that someone is not going to be rotating the object while they are also relocating it to "x" position.
once they finish placing it where they want. your script can work some magic... and poof... button will be visible.
something like that
After getting a few more people to test the newer version, my main issue right now is that no one seems to be able to figure out the engraver even with the ui tooltip explaining it. I think I might have to just move that from lvl 1 to lvl 2 and have it already set up and working. Might as well just show the player how it works before I put it in puzzles. 
I guess if I were playing I would probably ignore this too haha.
Haven't read everything that was said above so maybe this was addressed, but you should completely eliminate any concept of "selection". Movement/rotation should be immediate in a game like this. Find a way to setup a control system that doesn't require selecting things, if you haven't already.
i still think that using lights that shine out of the opening would be a great "visual instruction"... the light can represent the ball color you are expecting. Even just a highlight color on the opening would do wonders for making it feel more intuitive imo.
I'd do something like this.
