This is one of the most unique games I've seen in this jam so far.
The player has to consider that every movement input counts. Their movement determines how the enemies are going to behave, so the player has to determine how to get to the enemies without screwing themselves on the next round. The player also has to determine the right times to shoot with the factors of how often they shoot and when to shoot. Players can't just go around spamming the fire button or they will make it harder for themselves with their ghost rapidly firing as well. Having the ghosts be able to shoot and damage the player really prevents the exploit of having the enemies move into one corner and just firing at them in the exact spot. The ghosts are completely uncheesable, you just have to keep moving.
The colors are at just the right level of saturation and are pleasant to look at. I like how the dark abandoned building with bright red spikes contrasts with the colorful bright green hills and daytime sky in the background.
The controls feel incredibly smooth. I liked that I had the ability to change my height with the jump and the ability to bunny-hop by holding down space. It felt fun to just run and jump around the stage even when there were no ghosts around. As I was messing around with the controls, I discovered that I was able to double-jump midair which was not mentioned in the instructions. Was this meant to be a secret mechanic, or was this accidentally not put in the instructions?
One thing I feel could really be improved is to make the game feel less samey after every round. Even though there are a lot of strategies that could be discovered in different maps, every round starts to feel the no different than the previous one with no type of variety left to discover.
Here are two suggestions I could think of to make the game feel more varied:
The ghosts could have a randomized delay before spawning. Having the player not know what ghost is going to spawn first can make each round feel unique with different varieties of ghost movements occurring differently. Perhaps there could be different types of spawning each round, such as spawning enemies in rapid amounts, spawning enemies in groups, or just spawning them at true random, to think of a few.
There also could be a variety of ghosts that could spawn, such as a ghost that moves and shoots twice as fast than before, a ghost that multiplies itself and has slightly delayed versions of itself following behind, a ghost that fires explosive missiles instead of bullets, or a ghost that leaves a trail of flames behind that damages the player. It would make each encounter with a ghost feel more unique instead of dealing with the same exact enemy every time.
Another thing that could have helped during the beginning of every round would be to graphically make it easier to tell which entity is a ghost or player. While the red spots on the ghosts do seem to indicate which entity is the player or not, it's not too noticeable to see as I'm scanning the area around for the player. Perhaps if the ghosts had some contrasting bright colors added to them it would make it easier to find out which square is a ghost or not.
There were some moments where it was hard to tell whether I hit a ghost or if they died from another cause since there was no sound indication of either of these things happening. Having two different death sounds should fix this. One death would sound satisfying and hard hitting, with the other sounding disappointing and low-pitched.
I also would have liked to know what my score was during gameplay instead of waiting until I lost my last life. Showing my score during gameplay would make it feel like I'm making progress as the game goes on. If I don't have a scoreboard, I just end up feeling lost as to whether I'm doing well or not.
I would have liked the option to be able to restart the level. There were some points where I didn't like how my ghost's movement came out and that I just wanted to start over.
I felt like the ability to choose which stage before playing would be a useful addition as well. Perhaps in the future you could include a stage selection screen with the option to choose a random stage.
Otherwise, I'm hoping to see more features added to this game in the future since it really seems to have a lot of potential with its strategized gameplay and smooth controls.
Also just for the fun of it, I wanted to see what would happen if I activated a rapid-fire left click macro and fired hundred of bullets at once... I might have found an oopsie in your game:
