This took me back to playing the fighting sections in Stick RPG 2 if any gets that reference. I had fun playing and think this a really cool submission. Nice work

Very fun game! Especially for a solo dev game jam project! movement was fun and level layout was good! I wish there was more!

For a first time solo game, this is very good.  I felt like the little added lunge movement on the attacks was a good design choice, made it so spamming attack wasn't the best choice.

I was able to sprint through level 1 with the dash taking no damage and fighting no enemies.  I had an issue on a game I made previously where if you got past an enemy, that was it, you could just keep running and weaving to dodge new enemies, and none of them could ever catch up.  So I made enemies run faster than the player, and then used a circle collision box attached to the player that would make them slow down when they entered it, and then speed back up when the exited it.  Made the enemies stick to the player a lot more and forced you to deal with them.  Maybe that concept could help you out here?

Also, for the simple artwork and animations, it was very visually appealing.  Kudos.

Oh woops, clearly read the Please Explain section wrong... I'll correct that here. I took inspiration from games like Doom Guy where you are the weapon. Loose and lazy interpretation but hopefully its enough.