Thank you for streaming the game, and we appreciate the honest review! We're definitely aware of the multiple bugs you listed, such as weapon animations and graphical issues, but time constraints kept those from being ironed out. Hotkeying certain things like the map is definitely a good idea. That is now on the list of things for the update. As for the skill keys, we tried to change the UI to show numbers rather than controller inputs, but could not do that in time. We are aware of many collision and layer issues, and we're very glad you pointed out some that we failed to notice in testing such as the net at the river west of town. We'll take care of that for the update. The water boss arena was created on short notice. My co-developer specifically suggested what you said to add shallow water, but we couldn't find any tileset that suited our vision. We can definitely change the lighting on the volcano path, that's an easy fix. And the invisible players at the end was our mistake. We forgot to change the transparency back after the transition. A lot of items we have in the game are admittedly unbalanced. We wanted to make it so the player could get to the end in under an hour, but certain tactics can potentially shorten it to under 20 minutes, such as using the highly overpowered Spike Ball. We plan on weakening that attack by either doing less damage per hit, or making it roll much faster. As for the creative choices, Lee has a connection with the Moon or Sun clan depending on who you're playing as (Sol will be playable in a future update), and therefore has been taught powerful magic. The enemies in the volcano deliberately don't drop money so you can't cheese skipping the boss fight (you can refuse twice or have too little money in order to fight it). In conclusion, yours has to be the best review we've seen so far. It's in-depth but does not antagonize, and it shows you put thought in how it can improve. Thanks again for playing the game! Have a great day!
Viewing post in Born of the Solstice jam comments
I am trying to learn how to give better feedback.
On thing you might have tried would've been to take the beach tileset and add a B/C/D/E or such tileset with the purpose of a single tile with a darkening/lightening screentone-like pattern (look up how manga artists use screentones to shade and such). Have that as a passable 'grass/brush' tile and then have that on a higher layer than the water. This way, it will look like lighter/darker water and your character can walk on/in it with only half of their body showing so it looks like they are walking through water that is high, but not so high that they can't wade through. You might need to add some border tiles as well, but those would be pretty easy once you have a pattern to use.
We're in the process of fixing as many issues in the game as we are being told. The water boss arena specifically is getting a lot of much-needed attention, in that waves will be ever so slightly shorter and there will be shallow water to make the tentacles not seem as out of place. The rest of your points will be addressed, but we decided to handle the major game-breaker first. Thanks for your feedback!