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Hi! Please don't take this personally (especially from someone who also didn't finish their game) but I have a few constructive criticisms:

  • The movement system needs some re-tuning. The movement itself is floaty and imprecise, but a lot of the layouts in your world require semi-precise to very-precise movement. Having a floaty movement system doesn't make your game hard, it just makes it frustrating.
  • The controls are unintuitive. I played using a keyboard, and having to use Enter to attack made me unable to attack and jump at the same time--my right hand would be on the arrow keys to control direction/movement, and my left would be alternating back and forth between Space and Enter in order to jump/attack. Normally control bindings aren't a big deal, but they can really ruin your audience's perception of a game when they're off-putting.
  • Some of the combat doesn't make sense from a worldbuilding standpoint--I can punch a hedgehog three times and it dies, and I don't take any damage, but if I accidentally run into it while trying to punch it I take damage? It feels like the attack should have some sort of weapon so that there's a logical reason why you can attack it.
  • I had an issue where I couldn't pick up the drops from defeated enemies. I'm not entirely sure they are drops, actually, I just assume that from the green/blue color scheme. It could be XP, I guess, but since it's not explained anywhere I don't know. This, combined with the floaty movement, led to some frustratingly stupid deaths.
  • Lastly, level design and art: there's a difference between dropping your player in a maze and dropping them in a maze with a purpose. The first leaves the player disoriented, without any sense of direction, while the second forces them to quickly figure out where they are in relation to some goal. There's a time and place for both, but I'd argue that when you use a very limited art style, you should give the player some help when solving the maze. Big landmarks are very useful; "same-y" environments are not.

Don't let that get you down, though! I did like the character and enemy designs, and I have a feeling that it would look like a completely different game had you enough time to get some solid art in there. All-in-all, art isn't that big of a consideration, because the most beautiful art can't save a boring game--and vice versa. An exciting game can be successful, even with the worst art imaginable.

(+1)

Thanks so much for your feedback!

Could you elaborate a bit on the floaty movement? It feels pretty tight to me, but I'm testing with a gamepad and mechanical keyboard. Do you feel the character stops too slowly? Lacks air control? You're absolutely right that it's an important thing to fix.

As for the other points, I definitely see where you're coming from. I think a couple of them explain themselves as you find upgrades, but the opening is definitely confusing.

Sure! I think the easiest way to explain it would be that "it feels like you control the camera, and the player character is tied to the camera by a leash." So basically you've got a quick, responsive camera tied with long player animation cycles. The stopping speed is fine, as is the air control, it's simply the amount of time that you're in the air is too long and too even...generally platformers might have different character velocities based on whether they're jumping or landing, and while I can't exactly examine your code to see what your jumping/falling velocities are, they feel pretty much the same to me. If they're not the same, they're not different enough to effectively notice.

This problem (long animation cycles) on its own might not be that big of a deal if your camera didn't accentuate it. Your camera is very quick and accurate...something which really should be a positive. But here the effect is that by pressing keys on the keyboard, it feels like you're moving the camera: it always beats the player to whatever the next position is, making it feel like the player character is playing "catchup" with its own camera which only adds to the general floaty feel.

Sorry if it feels like my criticism was harsh, I know what it's like to spend so many hours of your time on a single project only to have it criticized the first chance people get xD

No need to apologise! The feedback was very useful, and we're still in the 24 hour grace period, so I might be able to fix it.

I made some changes to the camera, and gravity, based on what you said. I hope you'll have time to give it another try!

Looking forward to playing your game. It looks like a really neat idea.

Oh wow that was fast! Let me take a loo

I like the changes in the player's jump animation, it does feel less floaty, but what I think you can do to make it even better is increase the upward jump velocity by a bit. It'll make the initial jump feel more springy. I got a lot further in the game this time, and while I really like how expansive the world is, it feels very linear--not that I'm complaining, as linearity is something I enjoy--but idk how that works in a metroidvania.