I found dying after one hit pretty harsh, and the effects that come after nearly dying to be so strong they lag out my computer so I can't jump in time to avoid anymore obstacles. I think that there should be an indicator for how much damage you can take and also some leniency. I also think there is a strange issue with hitboxes where they seem larger if you were falling on to them? Or maybe that was just lag and I fell onto them but didn't realize because they hadn't rendered yet. After I accustomed to the lag and started to play a little bit more competitively it felt pretty good, though I found the platforming and getting to jump high enough a little finicky, sometimes I would jump up onto a platform, sometimes not. And also that thing on the sides of the platforms looks like a spike and I thought I would die if I got into it until I fell onto one on accident. I think it's interesting that you decided to balance your game with drawbacks to everything. I'm a fan of games that try to get out there and aren't just clones of other games. I will drop a game if at any point I have to ask why don't I just play [older similar game]? I never had to ask that question for your game, and I don't think it's likely most people will have to either. I think your progression is a little less tied to gameplay then it should be, I don't remember seeing a place where I could see what recipes I got but then again I hadn't unlocked any recipes. I think this could be fixed with making it a little bit more apparent what you're progressing towards like maybe having a bar on screen showing how much progress you've made on to the next recipe for motivation, or maybe a place to check your new recipes and see how much progress you've made to getting them all. This is a good game and it's well developed, with better design it could be a really fun game for everybody, I'm confident of that.
Viewing post in The ChefMix jam comments
Thank you very much for your review, it's exactly what we needed to further improve our video game. I'll try to address everything you mentioned. As for dying after a single hit, while it's true, it's also the function of the coconuts explained in the tutorial. If you have coconuts in your inventory, they protect you from damage but they also weigh you down, so the more you have, the less you can jump.
Regarding the slowdowns when you get hit, it's actually an intentional effect called hit & stop, which momentarily stops time when you take a hit. The particle effects and this specific effect are direct references to the game Hollow Knight, where the same thing happens when you take damage. It's true that if you have a less powerful PC (I know this because mine is too, not implying yours is), the physics might be limited and not work correctly, as they are designed to function at 60fps, which is the standard, and there are limited to this frame rate.
The hitboxes in this game are, I believe, quite the opposite of what you mentioned. They are very small in relation to the object sprites. We based this on how games like Geometry Dash do it, but perhaps some error related to lag or the speed acquired over time has occurred, so sorry for that.
Regarding the platforms, this is actually an intentional game mechanic explained in the tutorial as well (you can press the space bar while traversing a platform to get an extra boost and reach higher positions). Also, the issue of sometimes reaching and sometimes not might be due to the number of coconuts you have, which because of their weight, prevent you from reaching properly.
The spike originally damaged the player, but as mentioned in another comment, after causing unfair problems for the player, we decided it would simply be a harmful object for the leaves the player carries.
Thank you for understanding that these types of Jam games can carry errors linked to development time and for appreciating our idea of giving an interesting twist to the main mechanics of these games. It makes us really happy. And yes, we did plan to implement a recipe book, but time was not on our side, and we didn't have enough to do so. However, we're thinking that if the game is well-received and we win or come close, we could continue development and implement all these things that people have suggested with their feedback. So thank you very much for your valuable contribution.