I never thought I would be so scared of a few high-speed, floating A's.
In my opinion this game fit the theme of the jam perfectly. Dying isn't necessary or forced upon the player, but still provides helpful information for future attempts to navigate the maze.
The minimal visual design is nice in its own right, but I think the lighting is truly wonderful. Being able to see just far enough around myself lead to many intense, heart-pounding moments as I raced towards the exit and could see enemies flying past or chasing me just on the edge of my vision.
The most exciting moments for me were when I could spot an enemy passing one of my lamps, guess their position, just barely juke them by suddenly changing my path, and then race to the exit taking many twists and turns before they could catch me. In general, the level design facilitated these exciting moments. There were many alternate paths to take, and while some turns took my to dead ends, most of the time I was able to keep twisting around corners without worrying too much about taking the "correct" path.
The exception to this was the last level. It seemed like, in an effort to make it harder, there were more dead ends and several long corridors with no alternate exits that made it easier for enemies to trap me. This felt kind of frustrating. Having the freedom to move around in the previous levels was much more fun in my opinion.
The sound effects fit the visual theme, but weren't too special. I thought briefly that adding a sound to indicate approaching enemies could increase excitement, but I realized I actually liked the surprise of seeing the enemies appear in my vision unannounced.
I hate horror games and jump scares, but overall I loved playing Beacon of Light. Good idea, and good execution!
By the way, I'm curious how you programmed the enemies. It seemed that at the beginning of my life they would ignore me, but the longer I lived the more they would hone in on my scent and chase me down. Is that true? Also, sometimes I saw a small red circle drawn on the ground. What was that?