This is a cute little game, though it had some issues that kept it from being my favourite. I think it says something, though, that despite getting really frustrated at times, I played this game through to completion.
The light mechanics are definitely the highlight of the game. I really like that white torches show the way and red torches show danger, though I'd like to see checkpoints integrated into this as well (maybe blue or green torches?). Using it to activate things, too, is just a lot of fun. It's new and different, and it works well.
The platforming mechanics, well, they're fine on paper but there's something about the implementation that makes the game really finicky to play. Making precise jumps is hard and I'm not sure why. I think it's because the way it's set up you're committed to a jump of a certain length once you hit the jump button but it's very difficult to judge how long it'll be. The slidey movement, heavy inertia, and tendency to just drop control inputs doesn't help either. The wall jump is a cool idea, I love wall jump, but it's also super finicky and awkward and half the time I just fell off the wall. Particularly jumping from one wall to the other is very difficult.
For the most part, it's still okay, and the light mechanics carry it, but there are parts of the game which are just super frustrating to play. In fact, there were a few specific points where I almost gave up.
The first was the rotating hammer which I couldn't figure out how to get past. It kept knocking me down to the previous section and one time actually reset my checkpoint to before the jumping puzzle. Eventually I think I glitched my way through the hammer.
The second was the first disappearing platforms section. The light mechanics really lend themselves to slow, methodical play, and the finicky jumping basically makes it a necessity, but platforms that fall out from under you make this impossible. There just isn't time to land on a platform, probe for the next one, and pull off a jump before it disappears from under you.
The third was the giant wall jumping section near the end. This is pretty much just because of how bad the wall jumping is- a section full of it with spikes and pits was not fun.
I didn't like the flame sections very much- either the early ones or the columns you had to run past repeatedly near the end- but they weren't horrible. There were also parts where you had to make more leaps of faith than I'd like, mostly toward the end of the game, but again they weren't horrible.
I think in the end I'd rather see more use of the light mechanics, maybe for puzzles, and fewer tough platforming sections. If the platforming mechanics were improved, though, I might change my opinion on that.
I think I've already said this but the art is absolutely standout. It's consistently styled, it looks good, there's no glitching and it's all very nice. The character designs, too, are visually pleasing.
I wish there was more indication that punching ghosts is how you kill them. I was pretty confused the first time I made a ghost disappear.
The boss fight I tried to do properly once. I was sometimes able to light up all the lights, but not always. I thought it was because there were some up high where you had to wall jump and that's just not possible during a boss fight, but reading other comments it seems that it was just bugged. I ended up just cheesing it, jumping up and spamming melee attack on the boss's torso. Other than that, I didn't like that there seemed to be no way to avoid the swipe, but the other attacks struck a good balance between being dangerous and dodgeable. In terms of difficulty I was able to defeat the boss after a few tries, which means it's probably going to be too easy for a lot of people.
I'm not sure if the boss music is supposed to loop, but if it is it's not working.
In terms of length it's about right, though it's at the ragged edge of really needing a save/continue feature.
Dead Zones made me think of Metro for some reason, but the actual game has zero Metro vibes so I'm not sure why that is.
It's a pretty good game as-is, and it certainly has some really nice art. I think with a little bit of tweaking, it could go from pretty good to great.
Also, submitted under ten minutes before the deadline, that's cutting it close!