After weeks and weeks, I finally got to this one. Almost last, but certainly not least!
I have mixed feelings on the art. I like the pixel art characters, lofi backgrounds, drawn portraits, and sharp UI... on their own. Put together the game doesn't look bad per se, but it feels a bit disconnected. I think it still works Additionally, the style of the background, combined with the odd layout of the house, makes it hard to tell which areas are passable in some cases.
I love how the music steps up when the demons started spawning. I needed this cue, though, because I didn't figure out how the spirit candle indicator in the UI worked until the last level.
It's a very interesting game mechanically, and I had fun with it. Juggling multiple entangled demons that are harmed by some things but unaffected or helped by others adds complexity, but isn't overwhelming. It's also a brilliant implementation of the themes in gameplay. I'm still not clear on why poison kills water but not fire demons. Ice demons are definitely the hard mode monsters in this game.
Though harming oneself to kill demons has some Unfortunate Implications... I don't think it was intentional but some clarification and a content warning might be a good idea.
The difficulty curve is reasonable, but I found the last level extremely hard personally. The first level I could handle pretty easily, and the second was a decent challenge, but the third was almost beyond me. The first time I played it I lost because the demons killed one of the family members- I didn't even realize this was a mechanic. I'm not sure if I got lucky or it really wasn't an issue in previous levels, but I only saw it happen on the third one. Trying to keep your family from dying while fighting a lot of monsters with limited items and a reduced inventory (gotta carry those key items!) made it feel a lot harder. I also felt the map was too big for barriers to be useful, and ended up rarely using them.
I never got into an unwinnable situation, but I think it is possible by running out of either poison or healthkits. The former might not be unwinnable- I'm not sure how the spawn logic works and you don't need items to kill the fire demons- but the latter definitely can be if you don't have enough health left.
I did figure out how the lights worked before it was explained, though.
I didn't really like Spookie's character, but I did like Valora, and the witty dialogue and chemistry between characters worked great. In terms of length the game is about right, not too long and not too short.
I didn't realize until after I finished the game that the slightly awkward title "Spookie's Actions" is a play on "spooky action at a distance".
There's a minor visual glitch in the inventory, where empty slots are shown as white squares after using an item.
Between the gameplay, art style, and story concept this game really stands out. It doesn't really have the same magical girl feel as a lot of the other games, but I really don't think that's a bad thing, even in this jam.