I've made no secret that I was excited for this one, and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit I put off actually trying it until now. Life, as they say, gets in the way.
The writing is a little shaky, but if I recall English is not your first language and I don't want to be too harsh on it. The premise is pretty simple and maybe a bit cliche, but it's a good one and there's enough details given to get me invested.
I was impressed by the visuals right off the bat. Although... I did find some of design choices baffling. The enemies are half-naked and weirdly sexualized while the supposed prisoners are still wearing full armour, and have a weirdly sexy walk animation (I'm not sure if it's even possible to walk that way in plate). That's more an issue of style than quality, though. If there's one big strength of this game it's the visuals. They have a bit of an early 2000s vibe to them, but don't feel dated.
If you look closely, there's a fair bit of clipping but honestly that's not something I'm ever going to hold against a jam game.
The biggest problem is that the core mechanics just aren't fun. Movement is functional, but no more than that, and I found it awkward especially with the lack of camera control. Combat isn't fun at all, it's basically just spamming a button until either the enemy dies or you do. Sometimes they catch fire, but it's not clear why or how that happens, and there's no clear reaction or response to hits, which makes the whole thing feel empty and hollow. There's no clear indication that you are getting hit, either, just an unlabeled bar in the lower corner that goes down when the enemy is attacking... sometimes.
The dungeon sequence overstays its welcome by far. If it was shorter, I could give it a pass. I wouldn't praise it, but I wouldn't be so critical of it either. In addition to the un-fun combat, the maze-like layout gets repetitive fast. It's more stressful than fun trying to not die knowing that you'll have to redo the whole thing if you mess up.
I made it to the second green door; I'd dropped the green key earlier on and there was no way I was going back through that maze to get it. I was really hoping to get to the dragon part and I'd resisted quitting up to that point because of it, but the prospect of trying to make my way through that maze again was too much for me.
The sound design is not great. Sound effects range from passable to grating, and most of them don't seem to be positioned properly. The menu theme is pretty good, though.
To an extent, I think I hyped myself up for this game too much. I think it's a good thing that I did get hyped up- it means you're doing a good job at promoting your game- but it left me a lot of room to get let down. I'd say the number one takeaway is to focus on core mechanics, because those are really the heart of a game and yet the weakest link here.