Excellent entry, great job everybody!! Probably the most polished game I've played so far: all the sfx slap, the screen shake when you get hit, the professional looking UI, etc etc. I love the art style and the layered backgrounds create such a real sense of depth and made me feel like I was battling creatures in the deepest darkest regions of the ocean. The game controls beautifully, the spin controls are super responsive and I felt like I had total control over the player character. The first fight in particular has an amazing difficulty curve and takes the player from onboarding to challenging fun fight very smoothly. The was a great level of challenge and fun in spinning around to avoid projectiles while also having to shoot the minions that were tracking you. The menu music does a great job of setting the games tone. The reload mechanic is an excellent extra bit of theme application.
A couple of criticisms: some of the deaths can feel a bit unfair as you can get into situations where there simply isn't enough space to maneuver out of the bullets path. This may be a skill issue (don't get into those situations in the first place), and the annoyance is mitigated by the strained heart system (which is another good idea) but it can be frustrating to have runs end due to undodgeable attacks. The worst offender was in the second stage of the second boss fight, when the boss spawns 3 bigger bugs that release bullets on death. I had a couple runs end to their post-death bullets and it was frustrating enough to not push through to the final boss (I may try again later lol).
Overall, y'all absolutely nailed the core mechanic and built a beautiful world around it. The gameplay has spin in its soul and there is a surprising amount of depth in such simple controls. This game feels like something I should have paid for, not a jam game. Superb entry, keep it up team!!