This is game got one of the highest ratings I've given in the jam so far because it was so well polished and fun to play. I love the art style and the little touches like being able to see the dynamite in the jellyfish enemies was such a nice touch! The fact that the character has different sprites while shooting forward whether moving forward or backward is a lot of extra work, but that backward running and firing forward animation is so nice. I chuckled each time I saw it! And I know this is a little thing ... but those grass tiles are really well done.
I would recommend adjusting the players bullets. For him looking so macho and us players wanting to live that power fantasy, actually firing bullets felt kind of dinky. They're small and slow and the sfx with them aren't very juicy. I'd make them faster with a more powerful look and you could accommodate the game balance by just reducing their overall damage. I loved that when I first encountered a spring you didn't force me to pause for the text box. Really appreciated, but in the rest of the game I wish I could speed up the dialogue interactions. As much as I love all the art, I think you could have gotten away without a black outline for the player and instead used a really dark shade of that part of the player, so dark blue outline on the jeans, read on the shirt ... you get it. He almost seemed out of place, well not him, but the outline around him. I don't think it's necessary to track him well.
Clever twist of being on the edge putting you in rage mode. It was satisfying to fire that flurry, so I'd find myself taking damage just to get there. Overall, this is really well done and a super impressive effort from a solo dev. Great work!