The goals / mechanics were unclear to me. I didn't understand the point of being in light / shadow mode in the overworld ?
Viewing post in Shades Of Self jam comments
originally I intended light/dark mode to have different weapons and have the player fight enemies. It was too overscoped, so I switched to tile conversion. If you are in light mode, yellow character, you turn tiles into light. If you are in shadow mode, purple, you turn tiles into shadow. You need to light all the tiles in order to win the level. I'll admit the mechanic was very confusing and unexplained, but I was already pulling all nighters trying to pull this off. I completely understand why you think it's confusing, and although it hurts, I'll focus more on clean design next time. Thank you for playing.
Oh ok I see ! And some tiles you can only turn on in some of the colors, right ?
Now I see the concept.
I will say that no matter what, repeating the same level several times will unfortunately risk being frustrating. What happened to me was I died, and then I respawned on a tile of the wrong color so I died immediately again.
With that said, good job on the game. Both platforming part feel good to play, which is impressive considering the ambitious scale of the project for a solo gamejam. I think you're taking the right lesson from this about clean design.
Tougher part imo about work in a gamejam is having a clear well defined project from the start. Because it's never like that, second tougher part is being able to kill your children and relocate your effort when it's necessary. So congrats for that and delivering on a complete game !