After seeing what you did on the BT Game Jam with "Bugs make fine snacks" I immediately followed and I was pleased to see you created yet another beautiful looking game.
Sweet and short, just like best things in life.
If that's ok with you, here's a little bit of constructive criticism for this project (I do understand this is a jam project and the time constraint is very important here. As I said, I really liked the overall game/idea, so take this as a grain of salt ^^):
- First off, art is cute, polished, and it really shows who you are as an artist/developer. 10/10 there.
- Really nice detail on the storytelling at the beginning, it really helps setting up the mood for the game.
- Action platformer is a genre which is very difficult to get right, yet if it's done, it's absolutely amazing. I have to say however that in this project, both aspects are just a pass. They're not bad, but they're not amazing either.
>> Platforming-sided feedback:
- There's almost no variety on platform mechanics. Just basic move and jump. As far as it makes me feel you wanted to go for a more "chilled & relaxing" experience with the overall game, however, adding a small puzzle here and there, wall jump, dash, moving platforms or any other variety in platforming/movement would make the experience much more enjoyable.
- When pressing space, if you go through a platform above, it'll jump again if you didn't release the jump button. If there's a tight jump or an enemy above this can be quite annoying. I'd personally make this "onbuttonpressed", rather than "whilebuttonispressed" if that makes sense.
- Camera "Y" position: The character is always on the centre of the camera, which is good, however, there's a few times that you have obstacles below you and you cannot see them until you land on them. This happens specifically when you're over a platform and the obstacles are "a layer" below.
>> Action-sided feedback:
- This is where I found most of the improvements could be done. The action side of the project is very reminiscent of games like "Hollow Knight", however, due to the controls/execution, it feels frustrating rather than enjoyable.
- Hit "weight": You have player feedback when you get hit, however, there's no feedback when you hit an enemy (other than particles), which means you'll most likely get hit by an enemy approaching to you while you're mashing the attack button. Same script used when you get hit could have been introduced on enemy mobs stopping their moving pattern for half a second, and that'd make the combat way more fair and enjoyable.
- Attack aim: Due to the controls the player only attacks on the direction it's facing, and together with the previous point, means that you'll likely get hit a lot of times, specially with flying enemies. If the previous point is introduced this may not be longer an issue. Other option is to change the aim based on your mouseposition and lick to attack, so you can attack while running backwards.
- Dodge/Dash option: Again, personal preference, but would make combat way more enjoyable.
- Final Boss: The boss pattern is really interesting and varied. However, with the current controls is almost impossible to hit/dodge properly so from what could be a really enjoyable interesting fight, it ends up being a little bit of a hassle. With the current boss movement/attack pattern, I'd say a dodge/dash and mouse aim is borderline needed. Also found an issue with the collision: if you stay inside the boss after being hit it'll not register the collision again, so I ended up killing the thing by going bellyflop on his face and then smashed attack while staying "inside" him until he died.