I thought it was just the story dialogue and didn't realize you could actually shoot until level 12, which probably made most of the game more nightmarishly difficult than it needed to be, haha.
It is mechanically interesting, visually a little frustrating; dunno if this was intentional particle behavior but I did like having little light bits left around after death, so I could sort of see the area; made deaths after clearing the other 90% of the level a bit less painful.
Overall excellent work; very, very impressive considering the time constraints. I enjoyed this one a lot!