This is the great beginning of a project, the game has a lot of potential.
The 2.5D Perspective is done just right. Good depth and parallax effects. That's tough to pull off technically, so it's a really good thing to get dialed in. I like having dash available at the start, and the combat absorb mode choice. Those both contribute to the gameplay nicely!
Gameplay: The biggest thing that needs to evolve is the character controller and physics interactions. The movement is "janky." It doesn't feel very fluid, and the physics allow some strange things (and odd kind of single-wall ascending jump pattern, flying up through platforms that look solid, attack animations that are very abrupt and don't feel very predictable). The tutorial is clear and the level designs seem very nice.
Art: The arts seems to be mostly greyboxed. As such, I won't spend much time commenting on it. For improving greyboxing clarity, I recommend ensuring that the lighting is a little brighter and the contrast between character and background are always strong. I had troubles seeing my character when I jumped high in the mountains area and in some dark areas of the cave. The most valuable piece of art will be the character art. Having a rigged character model will improve game feel and movement feeling a LOT. So, those are probably the two improvement that will offer you the most bang for effort.
This is a great prototype that could be evolved into a very nice modern platformer.
Viewing post in Shape Shifters jam comments
Hi! Thank you so much for the incredibly insightful feedback! I have one question, specifically about the rigged character model stuff, the premise of the game is that it takes place in a world of shapes, hence why you play as a cube.
Do you think animation and game feel/flow could be improved within that premise where the player character and most other characters are still shapes?
Or is it simply too limiting and it could never be brought up to par with games that use humanlike character models?
Shapes can still work fine. I think there is absolutely a path to animating a cube that will make it feel fluid and alive. Even as is, one can conceptualize a cube as having four legs, or as moving by "rolling". Both of those metaphors could lead to some nice and simple animations that will make the flow feel great