itch.io

Hey ! Thanks for the game :)
It is great, and obviously polished and well done, but I must say I had too much trouble with input mapping to enjoy it :c I first tried playing with a controller because I thing this kind of game is perfect for such an input system, and I realized the jump key with Y (I'm using an Xbox One controller), which really surprised me and was too counterintuitive to get used to, but what annoyed me at most was that no trigger or buttons on top of the controller was used, while a trigger would have fit sooooo well for the vacuum action. Then you just jump with A, shoot with X, and you're good to go. So I then tried to play with keyboard, it was clearly better and designed for it, but I'm bad on platformers with a keyboard haha (cannot blame you for this though :p)

Otherwise - and obviously considering the fact that I had trouble with inputs - I think the level is too punishing too soon, one missed jump and you're almost guaranteed to get caught by the fire, as you then have to vacuum and then try jumping again. That's a cool mechanic that would be really fun for experienced players, but it was a bit frustrating in my opinion. Jumping and double jumping is hard in your game and there already are long jumps to perform at the beginning. I LOVE difficulty in games, but in my humble opinion, it was unfair here.

Last negative feedback, the menu navigation using a controller was pretty annoying, as switching from an option to another using a joystick would also change the value of the newly selected option (guess the dead zone is set to a low value), and you cannot switch from last value to first one, don't know how to explain it clearly in english, but like, if you have 3 values A-B-C, you cannot go from C to A, you must do C-B-A. Same goes for the options themselves, and there were apparently no back shortcut so you have to go to the back button which is at the bottom, without the possibility to just go from the first option to it by going up. Sorry if it is not clear, feel free to tell me and I'll try to explain it better :D

So that was it for the negative feedback, but there are obviously really nice things to say about the game ! First, about the options, I'm glad that you put a toggle to disable the scanlines. I personally like them, but it's always good to see developers adding options like this for people to customize a bit their own game, since it does not change anything about the design and can only be positive.

The lava in the tutorial that never touches you and the facts that it waits before starting a level is also nice. Makes in way less frustrating as it would have been if you had to start jumping fast when beginning a level. Wall jumping is nice, I would have make the character slower when on a wall, but I had absolutely no trouble dealing with it, which is nice because wall jumping can really feel horrible and frustrating when not perfectly working.

And I liked the visual style of the game :) simple but veeeery effective with nice color choices, beautiful interfaces, some discrete but nicely fitting environment details. The only asset I'm not a fan of is the static lava that's here for you to reload, but that's actually the only one.

Overall a good entry ! Hope my feedback is not to harsh, and I'll be happy to play the game again if you change the controller input mapping ! :)