Hello June, Thanks for the feed back!
The game was meant to be played on a game pad mostly because I play all my games with controllers and nothing on keyboard. Do you know of best practices for keyboard set up because the way I set the keyboard was like a controller?
The graphics style was done partly due to time because I needs something I could create the world with in a short amount of time and something that I can use as a base that I can use for if I wanted to "SKIN" the game. I do agree that things can be hard to interpret due to that decision. Do you know of any ways to make this style appealing or do you think that it may be better to use a tile set and sprites from royalty sources?
One of my major inspirations for the game jam (and in general) was Devil May Cry (DMC) and Megaman (MM). I love these games due to their options and level design style. DMC: path ways that lead to a locked room with enemies. MM: a locked door that leads to a boss with pre battle dialogue and shifting screens. Both: power ups/unlockable after a boss, and multiple approaches to a enemy.
I think for the next game jam I should use metroidvanias I play as a base rather than creating one from scratch because I had to cut so much that story became a mess.