This is very creative! You know, I actually thought of making a game with typing as a spellcasting mechanic when I was younger (but one of my friends didn’t seem too appealed by it); so I am very excited to see it being implemented here! I enjoyed the game and beat the boss. I think there is a slight dissonance with the controls. I had to either let go of my mouse, or move my left hand across the keyboard to begin a spell, which took away from the flow of action a little bit. I think a better way of handling this would be to assign spells to 1,2,3,4,5 (numbers other other keys) and immediately go into casting when pressed. Even better, forgo the mouse so movement and targeting controls are all keyboard - that would make spellcasting and movement become one and fluid as a baby’s butt. This is possible especially because during spellcasting, the player is not able to move anyway, so that means movement and casting are mutually exclusive, and can exist on the same plane of controls.

For future work, you can add an interesting mechanic where some spells can be typed with only the left hand. For example, words like “red”, “rest” or “water” - these will give a decision-making aspect to the player: go for quick and easy spells to react to something faster, or risk typing longer phrases for devastating effect? I feel this is like casting jutsus with one hand in Naruto, which makes the player feel cool to be able to do it.

Sorry for the long post, it’s because I was excited for the game. I love the levels and concept of this game. I had fun playing it and would love to see it developed even further!

Had a weird bug where I'd hit a spell and the whole game camera would move elsewhere and keep the text up but not let me do anything. I had to reload twice to make it stop. What you did with the colors made it a lot easier on the eyes than the original color pallete. Other than the bug it handled nicely and was super different from anything else I've played in the jam!

This game is not my cup of tea, as I'm not interested in the core gameplay loop. I still think it's a very creative game. I really like the world-building you did. The game also feels polished.

I'll reiterate the feedback most people have given, this needs a better control scheme.

Charming idea. Nice one.

Controls spread across mouse to move and enter to cast meant a lot of switching. Movement via arrows would solve this. 

A fun little game, I enjoyed the spell casting, though it was a tad bit buggy at parts. I like the "bounciness" to it, and the fact it loads so fast! A more in-depth tutorial would have been nice, especially for casting spells. And some audio could never hurt! overall, the polish was 3 stars, and engagement at 4, well done!

Overall a very charming game!

Pros:
The art visuals are very pleasing, love the effects as well!
Enjoyed the typing to cast spells mechanic.
Liked the small but not too small map that encouraged exploration.

What can be improved:
It took me quite awhile to realise I had to type to cast spells, as it wasnt in the controls.
Q,E with enter and mouse was a little awkward.

Overall, I enjoyed it!

I enjoyed it. I think the biggest improvements to be made are as follows:

• Controls are a bit scattered across the keyboard and mouse
• More polish, perhaps faster movement (maybe you start out fast, ready to explore, and get bigger, slower and more looming over time), and sound.
• More cross-interactions, like the rats or spoilage or explode fire coming in handy later (I felt the need to explode-fire on the church candles for example)
• More challenge in the early game. Which brings me to...

What I really liked:

• The combat! Preparing good straight-line move while "chanting" a spell was surprisingly interesting, and should have taken up more of the game (perhaps the villagers should become defeatable and aggressive upon ruining their stuff, rather than instantly broken)
• The map, fairly cute and intuitive to navigate. A pointer towards the shrine upon levelling up might have helped but I had no trouble with it

Congrats!