No, thank you for the wall of text. I always enjoy reading these.
> the grapple mechanic is a little hard to understand
Yes, there needs to be a better tutorial. But at this stage, the focus is on adding more content. A better tutorial comes later. Thank you for bringing it up though.
> reloading the gun basically throws a few bullets away
Well, well. The update in 0.0.90 is exactly this. Reloading will now drop the magazine if there's still ammo.
> the light-activated plants aren't properly signposted as invincible
They aren't actually invincible, just really high health. They should probably be invincible though, now that I think about it. Nice catch.
> light-sensitive plant also isn't super clear that light actually makes it aggressive at first
Yeah, I had a problem designing enemies that signal the player they're light-sensitive. At least, not without breaking the style of the game.
> last unique plant thing right infront of the elevator
This one honestly needs a rework. It's very unclear what its gimmick is.
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Thank you for writing! Always nice to read impressions.
In fact, feedback like this reminds what works and doesn't. You're helping make the game better just by giving impressions.
(PS. new update released.)