I didn't really notice the fading life mechanic until after I had already beaten the game, so I had to go back and take a look at it again, I think the mechanic should've been a bit more pronounced. Maybe with some sort of audio cue or changes to the player sprite over time. That said, if you were going to make the mechanic more critical to the gameplay, you probably would want to have some sort of checkpoint or level system to balance it out with any frustrations the player may have. That aside, the pixel art is pretty good, and I'd like to see ya flesh out your environments a bit more, good job!