I'm genuinely surprised on how many of my design choices you have picked up on. Now I'm going to try to address your comments in the fashion you dissected my game:
- Introducing the mechanic of absorbing enemy abilities: Through other people’s feedback and seeing my friends play the game, it became obvious that most people get confused as to how to get more abilities. It shows that I still need a better way of introducing new players to the core gameplay loop. It was my idea that getting the movement ability should spark that "aha" moment, but I think that's too abstract and brief for players to pick up on.
- The slash attack: It always spawns in a constant distance from a player but it does not move with the player so it may create an illusion that the cursor is dictating the placement, but really it only dictates the direction of which the zenith of a swing will reach. But yeah, it's somewhat of a difficult ability to wield, but it is put as a first attack ability to train the player, but maybe the game difficulty needs to be tuned down for the start of the game, as many of the players did not reach the other attack ability.
- Death screen: UI is not my strong suit, and your suggestion is really worth trying to do as it sounds like a clean solution for the clutter.
- Ability UI: You bring a good point about the cooldowns, I did it for enemies because initially they did not have telegraphed attacks and it was too hard to predict attacks, I could've done something similar with the player. Maybe have one half for attack and defence abilities, so when u use an ability the corresponding side starts filling up in similar fashion as enemies do.
Now to answer your questions:
"How early you had the first playable prototype of the game?": First I worked on player movement, the enemies, the spawning system and then went on implementing the ability absorption mechanic. Then after implementing enemies that could shoot I would say I had the first playable prototype and it took about maybe ~10 hours overall. The game as whole I would say took ~30 hours :D
"Can you spoil the last 2 abilities?...":
1. Pistol - let's you shoot 1 pellet
2. Bonus health - gives 2 extra health
Had ideas for more, but I chose to improve the gamefeel as it made the game feel more complete.
"Did you intend the attack ability to be difficult to use?...": I understood that it is a much more difficult ability to wield, so I wanted players to have a harder time at the beginning so that they would eventually discover an easier ability which in my mind could potentially create a sense of accomplishment as it would give them the ability to go further.
"How much you would say you have experience in jams / game design?": I've participated in one other jam, but this one is the first one where I actually submitted. Apart from gaming my whole life, dissecting what gives me dopamine hits and watching yt channels like "Game Maker's Toolkit" and "Adam Millard - The Architect of Games" I don't really have much practical experience in game design. It's a second game I've done A to Z.
But for real, thank you so much for your comment, I feel like you really understood what I was going for and I really appreciate your comments. Thanks for playing the game :D