To clarify a little bit-- I think the difficulty would be okay if you changed some other things around. Right now, though, it feels like I do a lot of work to get an upgrade, or to get to another section of the level, and then one mistake ruins it all. Having checkpoints, or a few hits until you die, or just saving the upgrades would go a huge way towards fixing the difficulty issue-- I don't think the mechanics of the game itself need too much tweaking. (:
Viewing post in In Hot Water! jam comments
Oh, well in that case:
- there already is a way to set your own checkpoints. Just press R to set a checkpoint wherever you stand. Pressing P resets it to the start too, just in case. I really wanted to make sure a single mistake never ruined your progress in the game. I get if that went unnoticed in the wall of text for the tutorial.
- And the upgrades are saved until the game ends. As long as the cloud of smoke is black, you still have the extra power. Not sure how to clarify that any other way. Maybe some more text. Hopefully there's no bug erasing your progress, because that definitely would be a problem. Another problem could be that it's not obvious you have extra power, again my bad.
In any case, thanks for clarifying what you meant!