Hey there MissingSeven and CrawlingChaox, I got your game for judging so here are some of my thoughts. The top-down presentation with limited colors was a brilliant move, both making your game stand out and making it easier to choose what skill to use in battle to deal the most damage to foes! I did wish that the question marks were a bit more distinct when it came to what was an item and what would move the story along, but that's a minor nitpick.
Gaining new skills thanks to equipment was a cool idea and complimented the time mechanics well, but I feel like there was a ton going on for a contest with a time limit. I wanted to take my time and explore different combinations, but since I could only play for an hour I had to keep rushing to see more of the game before time was up.
I accidentally started the golem fight right away (I ran up instead of down, whoops), so I had to brute-force my way to victory. I'm glad you did make that fight winnable even if the player didn't properly weaken it, but having a moment where the golem appears on the map before the player can move again would've stopped me from totally missing the intended way to do things. Possibly because I spent so long on that fight, I didn't actually finish the game in an hour so I have no idea how things end. It felt like there was a ton of story and dungeon to explore left after that, so it's a shame that I missed out on it.
Overall, I can see why you placed first in the People's Choice, this is a well-polished game! You clearly had a vision when you started this game and you succeeded, so good job!