This was cool, the graphic style was great, the character design was fun to look at, and there were lots of small details (such as SFX) that tend to get left by the wayside. The story with clearly defined goals (get to the forest, get into the fortress) is also a good detail to include. I'm currently stuck at the first boss (Natus in Tenebris?), but will give it another go later on.
I'll give you my top 3 suggestions for future improvement:
- Give feedback on attacking enemies and being hit. Currently there's a sound effect on the sword swing, but some particle effects or knockback on struck enemies would go a long way. I just went back and retested this and you do have an impact sound and pushback, so I can't really put my finger on why I wasn't really sure if I was connecting or not. Maybe it was the enemy's quick recovery time? I couldn't really follow up with a second attack before they'd recovered.
- Better telegraphing on enemy attacks, my current strategy is to preemptively dodge an enemy strike and then run in and hit it, then dodge again. This works, but it doesn't feel like I'm reacting to anything.
- Quality of life change, speed up dialog boxes or hit Enter to immediately display the current dialog chunk.
Anyway, a very good entry for this gamejam. I'm looking forward to getting back in there and fighting my way to the massive boss on the game page art, those attack swipe animations are great!