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.