This game is really sweet! It is one of the best game jam arcade action games I've played. I enjoyed this game so much that I continued to play (for a solid 15-20 min) it until I got good enough to beat the 60s
I love the feel on this game, the different spells/modifiers are awesome. The movement is also incredibly tight [I love mouse controls so much], and the dash is perfect for the frantic feel of the game [The cooldown does a great job of making it more of an escape tool for when you are panicking then something to consistently use which I think is great for the game].
There are two critical things missing in this game: an indicator of when you get your dash back and a victory screen for when you survive for 60s [I was so happy to get there, but then the game kept going and 5 seconds later I was defeated :(] EDIT: I replayed and there is a victory screen, but it is pretty unintuitive that you don't win immediately after surviving the timer, but instead have to clear the room. When I replayed to reach this screen I noticed the dash timer is much shorter than I was playing around, making it less of an only use in emergencies than i thought, and allowing you to use it pretty well to consistently kite and weave through enemies. I think the dash cooldown should be a bit longer
How I played the game [I really enjoyed this game, but I'm pretty sure the design of the game caused me to play in ways that were outside the intended experience so I think this is worth sharing] : I love the way typing letters looks on your sword, but it's a shame that I pretty much ignored the sword in favor of the spells, which seem like the only real way to play. Furthermore, fire is clearly the best spell. So my style of playing involved always typing fire and throwing fireballs at enemies [it should be noted that the skill element to fire where you can try to get multiple enemies with it is a really enjoyable part of the game. The reason I choose fire over beam is that the spread on the fire makes it much more consistent for hitting multiple targets, where the beam takes much more effort to line up given the frantic nature of the game].
I thought i would be naturally good at this game because I'm a really fast typist, but I was really happy to find out that the core of the game is more focused on the action, with just the typing being the controls for priming each fire shot. The real genius part of this game is that even single spell word has at least 1 letter on the right side of the keyboard which is a contradiction for the right hand which also needs to control the mouse. This led to constantly taking my hand off the mouse and back to type in the my needed 'i's, which was interesting because that caused me to sacrifice my movement for those moments. When things were really hectic I occasionally left my right hand on the mouse and had to do a cool bit of multitasking with movement and typing with just the left hand [which doing it this way has to move between the left and right side of the keyboard]. The unique control scheme of this game contributed a lot to the incredibly fun gameplay and hectic feeling.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!