Thank you for playing! I am glad you appreciate the art, why I always think is my worst ability. The particles are a mix of hand drawn, and CPUParticle nodes.
I agree with a lot of what I read from you, and you have made some observations I have noticed myself, and have planned to adjust in the future. I like to know what I did wrong, it helps me brainstorm improvements. Constructive criticism, is extremely helpful and welcome to me. I use it to determine my shortcomings in scripting in Godot, and game design. It also helps me gauge how far I have come, and how far I still need to go. I consider it vital to progress. Again, thank you it is helpful to me.
I think the spikes was a bad call, or could have been bigger. You are correct, the hitbox could be smaller. I had meant to do this, but it skipped my mind. I think if I adjust it, I will also make the sprites larger.
I picked the primary commands, based loosely off of the home row keys when typing. I had hoped to add a key bind mapping system (If you look in the options menu you will see the start of that), but remaining time did not allow for that. That is why you have multiple keys that do the same thing. I would like to note it has controller support as well.
I wanted you to think of the health as your lives. Once, you run out of health, you become the Devil and restart the game. In the future, I would like to use this system to implement a upgrade/skill purchase system (think rogue legacy, but much smaller).
Hopefully, I explained my reasoning behind some of the choices. I have plans to make the game a little larger and better. I programed it in such a way to reduce that load because of that. If it ends up in a state to where I am happy with it, I will update what I have done.
Again, thank you for playing I find your insight making me not only question some of my decisions, but is helping me come up with ways to avoid similar pitfalls. For example, I will most likely come up with a easier to do key bind system, with remappable keys that I can program fairly quickly in game jams.