Waking up this morning to see this enormous and detailed run down of my game was exactly what I needed after going to bed horrified I’d forgotten some game breaking bug. This kind of in depth tear down is exactly what I need. Seeing someone recognize a lot of my intentional design choices feels fantastic. Thank you. Also, based on your screenshot I believe you found everything :)
I agree with you that I’m too close to Zelda 1 aesthetically and I intend to make later zones more visually unique. That said I think the simplicity of the art style lends itself well to the difficult gameplay so it’ll likely be small things like different tile sets (you caught me. I’m artistically limited.)
You’re not the first person to think the wand would have the gem on the bottom so there’s definitely a type of player who expects it. I may reword the journal to make it more clear it goes on top, the wandblade is intended to look kind of dopey.
Skipping through death tips is an excellent idea, no notes.
It only occurs to me now that I didn’t tell players they can equip two swords at a time using Z and X on the menu screen and swap between them with the shift key. So that should definitely go in the controls. I don’t intend for players to switch which swords they have equipped during combat, only between the two they have on.
I agree items and swords should at least have inspectable names, maybe descriptions.
Hitboxes used to be more representative of 3D space but they were actually far more confusing. They function better when I put them where players “feel” they should be, but if it felt wrong to you I should go back and look at some of them closer.
I was thinking that coins should fly to the player as well. The coins were one of the first things I added a long long time ago.
I could respond in detail to every single thing you’ve said but I’ll spare you. I agree with a lot of it.
Thank you so much for playing and sharing feedback!