Thank you! These kind of reviews help a lot. The tie between story and gameplay was a major focus for me, so I hope later chapters continue to improve on that, as well as how Poppin and Jupa work together as a team.
I haven't looked into the hug for a while, but I can see what you mean. It has no business being that slow. I'll take a look at holding up and jumping too; I have noticed similar quirks when holding down.
I tried out a lot of different things with the charge, and at one point that was the case (as well as slowing down). What I found was that it felt too restricting to commit to a direction that early, since now they have to fire the glove and wait for it to retreat if they happen to face the wrong way when charging. I think missing with the glove is punishing enough.
With crawling, the main difference should be that Jupa is small enough to crawl into tinier spaces, the reason I only have her crawl is to help highlight that difference a bit more. I could try having Poppin crawl too, but probably slower compared to Jupa.
The partner revival is something that I'm still playing with, erring on the side of being forgiving for now (same thing for the rest of this demo, it's the first part). There is some punishment to it: the more you do it in a single area, the longer it takes each time. It can be time consuming while exploring, but very dangerous while a boss or a group of bad guys are after you. I did have enough people who game over'd on enemy waves and the boss, so I feel this is balancing out. Ignoring your partner and being too far away when they revive on their own will have them drop some money.
Some aspects I'm considering is reducing how many hearts they start off with on each revival. In later planned areas, some enemies/obstacles can make it harder to reach/revive your partner.
I thought of dropping money on subsequent revivals but I'd hate people to feel like they need to reload a save over losing too much cash. A "hard mode" that game overs on any KO is something I've considered too, but that'll have to be a ways away, I want to at least complete chapters 2 and 3 before fooling with that idea.
The demo has been a big help in figuring out what's working and needs tweaking, so the past few months have been addressing stuff like this. I'm hoping the next demo feels better and less glitchy. Chapter 2 has it's structure planned out, but I'm only partly through coding in the new obstacles, enemies, and finishing the Drill tool. I feel bad for being slow, but I hope when it releases that you and others will enjoy it!