I played the game again since our discussion on discord and you were very right. The way you used the particles are reminiscent of HK. Now that I looked more closely at I noticed that this game is just oozing with the HK feel. It's the colors, the way light shines down from a path that goes up, the atmospheric sounds, the lack of slopes and more. I love HK so much and that feel just put me in a good place right away :).
The music was pretty good even though it was so simple. I would've even let it pass if it where in a commercial game. Now I really understand what you meant by the sustained notes carrying the song. If you made some of the songs: great job. I know you were working on a replacement song for the crystal cave part, did you manage to put it in?
The game felt very polished because of the particles. There were so many little touches and you used the artpack creatively to achieve it. All the parameters of the particle systems were very nicely tuned and I think you did it perfectly! Seeing floating rocks as fog clouds made me smile and it reminded me of how creatively SMB1 re-uses the grass sprite as a cloud sprite.
The story was nice and fitted well with the atmosphere. It was engaging to see the snippets of the characters' lives when you move back and forth through the level. Seeing the demon at the was very unsettling, especially when he whips out his animated tentacles. I was like "WOW". I've seen you wanted to make more unsettling games in the future and you did a great job here. One thing I think would improve the engagement of the story tho is if there was some form of relations between different characters. I don't mean it like having a conversation but more like learning one thing about a character from another. This will make the story bits more like puzzle pieces and make the player think about what each segment would mean in the context of the whole game. Basically, I wanna see a story bit and go: "hmmmm, what are the lore implications". still very nicely done for a jam game.
There were a few nitpicks that held me back from giving you 5 stars on the polish. I think I'm being too harsh tho by taking a point away so they are really small. 1. The coyote time is broken. I think you made the jump velocity additive and don't compensate for the downward velocity gained by falling. For my games I like to go a step further and even adjust the jump velocity impulse to compensate for the height that is lost relative to the platform. This makes the coyote jumpheight consistent with the a regular jumpheight relative to the platform. I hope you remember the quadratic formula for this implementation :), or dm me. The amount of coyote time seemed good tho. 2. the music seemed to transition a little to fast for me. Considering how calm the music is I would expect an equally calm transition. 3. the friction of the character was off but you know this already.
Some comments say that the pacing is odd because you start so slow and very suddenly move at hyper speeds after you get the first upgrade. I'd like to argue however that that contrast makes the upgrade more exciting and that was a nice addition.
I also found the platforming bit boring. The platforming isn't thought provoking as you just jump forward from A to B. and that is.... PERFECT. You don't want to distract the player from the story in a game like this. The player has to be able to daydream about the 'lore implications' while they are moving around so you did a great job on this part.
Good game. Would play it again.
Edit: Oh I forgot to mention I really like the part where you drop down in the lower area. Suddenly being emerged in another place like that felt really juicy!