The 2 ideas I gave (highlighting spawnpoint area, or spawning in a radius around the player but not in front of him) are a “tweak” to the current game idea, keeping the gameplay the same. Switching to waves instead of levels changes the core gameplay loop. It’s not a bad idea, but keep in mind that the gameplay might change a bit.
Also, I’d say that the “growing into a different level” works well for the jam, but for an actual polished post-jam game, it would be cool if growing/shrinking the player did more, so that it’s a more “active” part of gameplay rather than just a “stage transition”. Maybe once you reach a level, you can grow to that size whenever you want (and scale down as much as you want); to make it a more active part of the game, maybe you can have specific powerups only on specific levels, or maybe an “invincible” enemy that has a tiny hitbox for which you need to size-down, etc.
As for the items, here’s some more ideas (either standalone or in combination with each-other):
- Glow effect on the items
- Pulsating (growing and shrinking) effect
- Sound effect when an enemy drops an item (this one might become a bit annoying? but I can also see it as something that makes the players go “heyy, an item just dropped somewhere?? let’s gooo”)
- Magnet-ability that allows you to pick up items over larger distances (this one doesn’t really help much with items that are off-screen tho…)
- Minimap that has the player in the center and showcases both enemies and items