Hello! Garden Monarch stands out aesthetically as a mystical forest pixel platformer, with an almighty wheel of fate to destine whether you stand a chance or inevitably perish. From the player's design to the selection of music, my gameplay experience felt somewhat reminiscent of Hollow Knight. (One of my favorite games ever!)

I appreciate the open space made to acquaint to controls as they felt unusual, along with the overall aura and ambience to foreshadow what awaits. Breaking into the lair of the Mushroom, the combat felt reasonably challenging and progressively more intense. I was affixed to play via mouse/keys, so I felt friction from dashing toward my mouse versus the pressed arrow key. Moreover, when Phase 2 of the Mushroom battle ensues, the wheel enables some ability that evidently was not intended to freeze my position indefinitely.

I did like the special spinning blade attack, and yet I feel this could be polished to enable hold and release for smoother control of fire.
As a sound designer, what I heard from implementation of sound suits the world and aids to the melancholy loneliness I would imagine the player feels.

Great work on this one and I'm glad I could give it a play!

The game is very complete, and the art is amazing, but the combat may need some adjustments. I played for 30 minutes and couldn’t get past the second boss, so I used invincibility mode, and looking at the final boss, I’m sure I would’ve spent hours trying to beat him haha. Most comments have already covered aspects of the game for you to revisit and decide what to tweak.

One thing I can contribute is feedback on the player's hurtbox when touching the boss. Most of my deaths were because of this, it requires extreme precision not to touch the boss, who is large and makes sudden, unpredictable forward movements. Additionally, the bosses have very few openings to take damage.

Save Team Cherry... Autumnsaki Spawnchigo...!

Sadly I don't like HK and this game is so much of it that it's not for me too. For me the game design where bosses barely have openings to be attacked and the 300 frames freezes whenever you're hit is the enemy of fun, so seeing even those be replicated tells me the world really loves it and I'm the black sheep.

Game and game design aside,  I think your aesthetic is better than the original, so I can appreciate your art and spritework, even if not the game.

Used traveler mode to see and judge your bosses properly (great feature more people with impossible games should have this). I think you started with the best one, the mushroom was the most interesting one, followed by the pig. The worm and the flower seemed like hell to fight seriously, and the final boss actually I expected a bit more of flair and the moveset wasn't very interesting. 

I must say, you sure love falling rocks/objects, huh? Everyone drops something on your head in this game. I think the worm feels the worse (even as traveler) because it is immune for so long as the only move it does is the hit both edges of the screen until it gives you a small window to be hit. No parry to make you engage with the attacking enemies, and randomly all your attacks miss because of the wheel does kinda feel like a nightmare mode hard game enjoyers dream of, so one could say it is an upgrade from HK not just in aesthetic.

Ok, that's a whopping 5 stars for sound and picture!!!! Like many, I felt the Hollow Knight inspiration, but you've made it your own very well! Really, the atmosphere is breathtaking.

As for bosses, the battles are very well thought out, and each boss is unique! But I found the boss patterns a little repetitive.

Then there's the difficulty. I had to work hard to defeat the mushroom. But I'd never have beaten the following bosses without the invincibility option (thanks for adding this option, by the way!) It might be nice to regain all your life before a new boss, or not have to start all the bosses over again when you die.

In short, the game is really cool in many ways, and makes me want to give you lots of criticism so you can improve it. Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing!

There's clearly an absurd amount of polish here, to the point where it's honestly insane to think this was made in a month. I do have a few qualms in terms of game feel that really prevents this from getting a proper all around 5. Having the mouse dictating your direction in terms of dodge and special attack felt really weird to me, and it got me screwed over quite a few times especially since this isn't information that's told to the player. And even when I was conscious of it, I couldn't use it to my advantage because the boss fights are just too fast paced to give me space to consider my mouse position. I also think the stop whenever you get hit is just too excessive in terms of feedback for player damage, it very starkly broke up the pace of the game, and in a fast paced boss fight when you lose the flow and rhythm of the game it's so hard to get back into it. I just felt my immersion breaking every time I got hit. I usually don't hyperfixate on criticism like this when I comment on jam entries, but this submission is PHENOMENAL on literally every other level, and with quality of this level little things like that start to matter and be the difference between a game that's great and one that's borderline perfect. I can't express enough just how fantastic this game is though, I beat all of the fights and I was impressed with the variety between them and how much they pushed the mechanics and player  play style in unique ways