Thank you so much for the kind words! Completely agree on all counts - as is often the case in gamejams, tutorialization got the short end of the stick and as a result the game isn't super understandable to a newcomer. We hope to polish and improve it further post-jam!
As for the building, at the beginning of the game you only have enough Science to build really close to the maw of the snake; subsequently, building Labs (the towers with the light at the top) gets you more Science while they're standing and let you build further away. But we completely agree that this is currently not well communicated.