Very ambitious and meaty for a jam game. I don't think I've even seen a real 3D Metroidvania in a GMTK before. Definitely rewards those who are persistent. Which I kind of imagine is not most -- I know I got pretty stuck after obtaining the second pip. The challenge of doing not just 1 two gap jump, but a whole bunch in a row is pretty daunting, especially because you haven't really learned the mechanics that well yet. So in true metroidvania fashion, I went and sequence broke my way up the hill to make it to a new area before I think I was supposed to, and came back to that spot, now with a full 2 face, to obtain that pip the easy way.
Once you start obtaining a few more pips after that, the game really opens up, and the game becomes fascinatingly non-linear. You can go find some pips by exploring crevices, or do some challenging platforming. At some point, you realize that you can get even more height by jumping multiple times, and it's at that point that the game becomes a lot more fun.
I did eventually manage to fill up my die and make it up to the pink d20 looking crystal, where I got confused because it didn't seem interactable. Was I supposed to 100% the pips first? But anyway, got probably more than an hour's worth of gameplay out of this, which is pretty impressive for a game jam.
But anyway, I liked the intuitiveness of the idea but did wish it controlled better. The die is pretty slow to move around (which you can make faster by boosting, but still), and there's a pretty heavy learning curve to it. That being said, I'm not really sure how to make it less confusing -- the entire point of the game is orienting the die, so to make that any easier might lose some depth, but it's pretty tough throughout to specifically position yourself in just the right way, and then to position and time another face to boost you in the right position in mid-air. Which of course is made even more frustrating by the fact that this game is Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy style -- you fall down, you now have to climb all the way back up.
Edit: OK weirdly I found the game kind of frustrating while playing it, but now that's it been 3 hours and I can look back on it with rosy-tinted glasses, I think it's my favorite game in the jam so far. (Also I like to play all the games tagged metroidvania in each GMTK jam and this was the first one I played and I don't think any other games surpassed it, certainly not in scope or originality).
