For a first game jam entry, this is actually pretty darn good.
I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but conceptually it seems you avoided pretty much every rookie jammer mistake: you focused on a single, core gameplay idea with a small scope. You crafted a striking style that fits that gameplay idea. You tried new things out. You even had time to polish things up with writing and 2D art.
I understand that you want to keep developing the game, so outside of tips like “more enemies and variety”, which I’m sure you’ve already thought about, I’d like to focus on three things that kinda bugged me:
-
There’s a noticeable delay between hitting LMB and the sword actually swinging. This is maaayyybbbeee due to the game waiting for the idle animation to “finish” before transitioning to another animation, but don’t quote me on that. Either way, it makes combat feel sluggish and “off”.
-
Readability issues. I loved dashing about - it’s great and satisfying. I gathered that it has a cooldown, but couldn’t find a UI indicator for it. Also, I believed the lantern had an internal HP meter, and by filling it up with light I was “restoring” it. This led to an issue where I was stuck in the dark with zero light and had to blindly flail about (I would mash E to fill the lantern with light). I don’t know if I was right, because the game doesn’t really telegraph that. Both of these are examples of gameplay-critical info the player needs clear, concise info about.
-
Focus on “juice” or “game feel” as it were. Faster movement, camera animations, more impactful sound effects, explosions, particles, the whole shebang. If your main focus is first person slashing, it should feel great to do for 5 minutes.
Other than that, capitalize on the 2D art a bit more. It’s genuinely well put together.
Anyways, that’s what I had in mind. I love the core game design and I feel like you pulled it off extremely well considering it’s a 7-day game jam and it’s your first one. Y’all got potential. Good luck :)
P.S. Unreal packs every damn engine feature into its builds, which results in overinflated file sizes. Not really your fault, Unreal’s just like that. I’d recommend looking into optimizing builds in the future.