Good to know about the Xbox controller! I had no dang idea! And yeah, being locked in that first room is intentional, to force you to use that checkpoint (cus you start with 4 hp.) I meant to put a visible wall but couldn't get it in time. I'll change the text to "checkpoint set" or something instead of spawn point so you know what's happening. Jeez, I hadn't experienced that shield bug. Yeah, LT puts up the shield, but when you let go of LT it should disappear. I'll look into that!
I literally just slapped the hud over there. It used to be fixed on the character's position so I did a rush job just intending to get it out of the way. I'll have the UI placed properly in the next demo, and it's actually going to look different--this is just the placeholder art, including the dark numbers. Using potions while being grabbed/attacked/whatever is actually intentional, because I used to have it disabled and it just wasn't fun to get grabbed with 4hp left and then immediately die. When the grabber grabs you it counts down his grab timer with any key/button press, so that counts all buttons on the controller. But now that you mention it I'm not sure I ever tested the joystick, I'll have to go check.
I just redid the player movement controller and it was a rush job so the bouncy collisions are the result. Definitely intending on fixing that.
Thanks so much for your in depth critique, it helped a lot! I really appreciate it!