Well i wanna scream into a pillow because i had an essay written here and refreshed the page because it's 4:am and i'm not thinking well, oops.
ALRIGHT. Let's do this again, but more concise.
Gotta say, it's got a cool atmosphere, nice sounds, an awesome menu, it's all cleaned up. Can totally see you put a lot of shine on this, and i love that! The tutorial got me up to speed quite nicely and i was soon playing again like i was before.
Artistically it looks fantastic and the decorations with the walls are perfect. It feels way sleeker, the text boxes tinier, the inputs customizable and everything polished. Particles, jump effects, it's great!
Hooooowever i couldn't finish it. It kinda beat me, hahahaha. It got hard. Well, not actually. It's complicated. The thing is that the difficulty curve not only gets hard really soon, but it stays hard. It doesn't get harder nor it gets easier at all. I don't feel like i am getting past a challenge to go to a greater one, it's mostly all hard challenges all the time, and this coupled with the punishing falls (which got a bit more punishing now, more on this later) gets really stressing.
Now, stress can be good (it's supposed to be hard!) but i do remember not having this much trouble with the other version. I must guess that you got way better with the game and therefore are able to make more challenges and don't fall that much, and so don't get to see just how long certain sections can go where you can fall all the way down to the same spot. The one spot that killed me was this one: https://i.imgur.com/42dIcNT.png
I could get past it! I did, many times. However the part after that, that was relatively easy, i still got stuck in a blue wall and fell, and oh god then it was just a struggle to go all the way around just for the chance to even see if i could get past the screenshot part.
I think part of it is the new blue walls. They work perfectly compared to the old ones, and that's good, however sometimes you don't seem to touch them but the hitbox disagrees. Specially when dashing. That coupled witht he fact that it absolutely stops you on touch makes it feel really weird. Also, you can't seem to move at all if you are falling through them, and that leads to trying in vain to escape, wasting dashes to save your life that could have been used to, uh, save your life. (suggestion: make the player unable to dash while touching these walls, and make them tinted or something to show that they can't dash).
Also there are some decorative blue walls that can absolutely screw you over. I particularly remember a vertical climb part that was white columns between protruding clumps of blue wall that was there as an obstacle, but would have small parts of them out to decorate and i seemed to always get stuck on those, which wouldn't be bad if it wasn't *just* a few pixels off from falling safely. However, absolutely love the decorations between white walls and blue walls, they look fantastic.
However it's mostly the falls. I feel like it's gotten way more vertical than before, and therefore way more punishing. Also i can't seem to somehow save myself from falling all the way as much as i could before, the platforms seem tinier, more apart. More vertical.
I still really like it! Doesn't seem like it probably from all the complaining but i'm here as a playtester, hahahaha However, it got wayyyy too punishing way too fast. I still like the story snippets that build atmosphere and have little jokes, i'll probably go at it again when you release it, so i get to see them all!
suggestions:
Another outward zoom level. Just to be comfortable.
Make a sign here (https://i.imgur.com/9rbIApj.png) that reminds the player that they can still jump diagonally after dashing forward. I totally forgot about that (i'd just press "up" instead of "forward+up" because of training with regular platformers that would use the momentum of the dash) Sounds like i'd die of starvation there. Dangit.
Probably a particle or something to tell the player they got their jumps back. Sometimes you can't really tell!
The blue wall anti dash thing.
Probs more safety from fall measures, specially earlier on. Also probably more horizontal parts that aren't caves, to fall but not really lose that much progress, or be able to get to a platform instead of falling all the way.
Try to make the earlier parts a bit easier, not because it's too hard (i mean, it is, but it is kinda the point) but to make the player feel like they are getting better and getting to earn the hard parts, as now it's just hard all the time. Doable, but hard, and every time more punishing.
Also, did you end up adding the downwards dash or was it there before? I suggested you to add it, but asking my friend he says it was there before, and i can't really remember! I played with my friend again, he also stopped, though he got a little further.
I forgot a few things with erasing the whole post. Dangit. Still, hyped to see what you do with The Lonly Wall! It's prettu good as it is, but it totally beat me, hahahaha
Gotta say, it makes me really happy that you came back to this, as i had gotten the feeling you wouldn't. It's great to see the game develop slowly but surely. This is some good stuff, man.
btw i am doing a really really short platformer, if you wanna check it out: https://stopsignal.itch.io/infernal-hog-pizza?password=pizzahog
i actually uploaded what i have already just for you to check it out, so feel free to feel obligated (?
just kidding, of course, hahahah
Also, i really need to make fanart of this o: