On the left you'll find your resource bar. It shows resources that you (will) own. You'll see two numbers, and an arrow. The left number is what you currently own. The right number is what you will have once you end your turn. Any numbers on a coin will show the monetary change that a forced buy or sell will result in.

The top entry is your money. It can't go negative, so keep an eye on your spending. The second entry are your workers. It shows how many workers you have in total, and how many workers you have remaining when you end your turn. This doesn't mean your other workers disappear, but it's an indication of how much of your workforce is still available. See the topic about economy and money management for more information about trade and money.

When you click on a tile, you'll see a panel on the right. It shows pollution details, and one of three subpanels: Construction, production and residence. Empty tiles can be built upon, and you can choose what you want to build in the construction panel. Use the dropdowns to select a category and then the building you want. Then build it. The build action cannot be undone and will immediately eat resources. It's not very user friendly right now. You can also refurbish existing buildings, so a new building replaces it.

The production panel allows you to toggle production, and choose a recipe if available. When a building is producing, it takes resources and workers, then transforms it into different resources. It may also cause pollution. Disabling production means it won't do anything.

The residency panel shows you how luxury items will be distributed. You can force buy them on the market, meaning the house will always buy those if not locally produced. Or you can ignore them completely, meaning that this house won't consume that luxury item even when they're available. Simply drag and drop the resources in a different panel to move them.

On the top is the turn menu. You can end the turn, and if there are any errors it will show that there. There are also two small buttons for the escape menu and the settings menu.

Buildings

When an empty tile is selected, you can build a building there. Make sure you have enough workers available, or the construction will have to be paused. Resources will be immediately purchased if you don't have enough, and there are no refunds (for now :') game jams ftw).

It may take a few turns until your building is completed. You can activate or deactivate construction when the construction site is selected. Deactivated sites will not need any workers or resources

Once a building is completed, it can either provide homes for workers and their families, or produce resources. Select a recipe and it will produce that when you end the turn. If you don't have enough resources, it will automatically buy from the global market if possible.

Economy

Money is the core of your economy. If you are short on resources, they're bought automatically with money. If you have excess resources at the end of the turn, they are sold automatically for money. You can't have a negative balance, so shut down any buildings that cost too much money

Luxuries

Most residential buildings will have space for multiple families. If you provide enough luxuries to your homes, the amount of families will increase every turn until it's full. Every residential building will automatically consume excess luxuries (1 per building, regardless of size, meaning a skyscraper takes just as much electricity as a cottage). You can configure per building if luxuries should be bought if there aren't enough, or if this building should be skipped entirely. No need to give high tech gadgets to a lonely homesteader, right?

Early game you'll want cheap and simple buildings, but as your industry grows you'll want to refurbish some of the basic homes into bigger ones. Provide more luxuries and they can house many workers.

Pollution

Buildings can cause pollution, and every 5 total pollution that influences a tile will reduce the influence of luxuries. Too much pollution and not enough luxuries means homes can end up empty!

There are two kinds of pollution: local and global. Local pollution can be produced by buildings and it will affect tiles surrounding it. If a building produces 3 local pollution, its 4 neighbouring tiles will receive 3 local pollution, and their neighbours will receive 2, and theirs 1. This stacks with local pollution from other buildings.

Global pollution influences the entire map. Global pollution is halved every turn, and then every building that produces global pollution will increase the pollution level by their amount. If your workers are all leaving the island, check your pollution levels and perhaps shut down some of your dirty power plants!