I cannot believe you completed this in a month. I assume you we're working from scratch, but its still truly impressive. The map has multiple areas, and the character controller is largely complete. It was very fun roll jumping, even thought i know it wasn't intended since it runs circles around most enemies.

This game feels so finished, most of anything that I could say revolves around the actual design, instead of technical issues or things that make the game unplayable. I could talk more, but I'd be echoing a lot of the other reviews here, and if this is the base you're working with, i think you have a good idea of where you're headed. Great work!

Nice game, loved exploration every nook and corner of it in search of even more... POWER! O_O

Pretty neat mashup of Dark Souls and Metroidvania! Overall, the game played  well, but it took me a while to get used to the bounding box on the player and the game felt just a tad floaty for my tastes. There's a good connectedness to the world, and having smaller powerups for the player to discover along the way is a nice touch to keep the feeling of progression going.

Nice job!

i got really hooked playing this.  its so much fun to explore. i get the feeling that some stuff i like mightve been unintentional. like when i had a eureka moment on how to scale walls using the wall jump+ roll.  then i realised that i could roll into the wall and wait a bit for the double jump to reset and make it easier.  also liked stuff like waiting for bats to push an enemy off a ledge. just really like that i could manipulate the mechanics in ways that felt 'free'.  dieing from falling seemed a little janky though, like its based on movement speed or something.  like i can take a downward exit and die if i roll while falling (where i would be fine if i didnt roll). this was pretty great overall, just a couple nitpicks.  couldnt move around the map to see other areas, thought this would be nice and getting swarmed by lots of bats in several places on the map (just a little repetitive)

hope you continue developing this, great work!

Wow, I was so impressed with this game! I just sat here for a few hours and played through the whole thing until I had almost 100% of the map, only missing a few spots that seem impossible to get. I doubt I will find a better game in this jam in terms of gameplay, it was so fun!

The roll was really interesting, especially after getting the double jump. You can move very far and very quickly vertically by rolling in the air, and you can do your 2nd jump after the roll to get across really vast distances. I also noticed that you can gain height by wall jumping and rolling into the wall if your timing is just right. You can sequence break & get to areas without the sprint, although I don't think there's any point in doing so with the current map. Anyway, it was really interesting to see the synergy between mechanics.

The graphics were not bad, & I kind of liked the hero, it reminded me of the hero of Iron Sword. All the particle effects really added a lot to the visual aspect. I liked the sound effects & ambient sounds, but I really missed having some music.

I noted a few things that I thought could better. Don't take it the wrong way, the game was awesome! First, I wish the save bonfires were more conspicuous. There were some times I was exploring and I was jumping and rolling to go faster & skipped right over bonfires. A few bonfires are in a position where you can miss them even if you're just walking. If they were more visible, there wouldn't be any issues. It would also be nice to see them on the minimap.

As I mentioned above, there are some things that can be exploited by players to break the intended sequence of upgrade. The ones I noticed were climbing the wall by jumping & rolling, and also jumping off bats to get extra height. A lot of metroidvanias put in stuff like that on purpose since they can be really fun for players that are looking for stuff like that. I wouldn't consider it a flaw or something that needs to be taken out, but it's good to be aware of the existence of anything like that while building levels.

I would have liked the wall slide not to trigger so easily, perhaps making it trigger only when holding in the direction of the wall, because it was easy to stick to the wall by accident. Going up the stair-like sections was tricky, and some areas with a small gap were hard to get through because of it too.

And just a couple minor things - When there were 2 of the giants (the first boss) in a room, one would just kill the other if you waited. Also, if you were directly above an enemy, it would constantly switch from facing left to right, almost like it was spinning.

Anyway, I'm really impressed, & I'd love to ask some questions about the programming too if you wouldn't mind. I am using C with Raylib to make games right now so I think I could learn a lot from some of the things you've done, & I was wondering how you did some things while I was playing. Thanks for the great game!

Very great metroidvania game. Can't believe you made such a huge world in this time frame. The lack of details in the world does show a bit because of this, but it is so fun to explore. Especially since you have great enemy variety too. I feel I am stuck now after playing 30 mins to an hour and getting up to 7 or 8 hearts and the purple item, but I may just have to explore more. Really wish there was some kind of save game option; if there is and I don't realize it then please let me know!

Great job! My fave so far and I have played about half the submissions by now!

Congratulations on the publication! The atmosphere is very clean and the sprites are cool. The main attack, the dash and the wall jump have a good feeling. It's a bit hard to progress through the level but the concept is cool, the animations are good and there's a good diversity of enemies.

Really cool concept, I felt like it was a mix between Dark Souls style and Metroids maneuvering.