Awesome entry and spectacular use of the theme and limitation, I did beat the game as hard as the last level was haha. Was great fun to do so as well!
Some things I noticed immediately is how low the gravity is, this did add to a general feeling unwieldiness which might have been the intention, but I do think that it made deaths hurt a bit more since it would take longer to get back to where I died. This was compounded by the 1 hit death system and resetting the level on death, however resetting was instant so it did have that fun difficult game aspect of die go die go die go. Super great work. I want to go into detail about something to consider that might help some of these issues as I address this next thing:
There was a unique type of risk reward I found with the slime, if you get the slime you become bigger and can see alot more. This is very handy in finding your route and timing your falls. However the bigger you are the easier you are too pop. On the last level I found it better to only get 1 upgrade as it kept my size low. This was really great, the risk reward nature of it created a sense of strategy and routing. However, it felt a bit skewed in favor of being small alot of the time. Mainly cause all your getting is sight. This is hardly much of an issue however since as your learning you get to enjoy that aspect of strategy.
I would like to suggest that having fusions be HP would have solved quite a few issues the game might have had unless the intention was to be more of a rage game. When you get hit, you shrink, if your the smallest, you die. This would make slime blobs always good to get, killing a sense of risk reward, but would have helped the difficulty alot, mainly since I do not think the game is that hard, but rather punishing, if you make 1 mistake you reset after all so you need to redo every trick perfectly to retry the hard bit. Dealing with the pain of the slow from paragraph 1 since you don't have to reset as often.
Game jams are tight and so changes like this can be big changes to make, so I am not trying to say "why didnt you have this" but just offering a suggestion of a potentional fix for some issues. Jams are hard and what you have is fun and unique so fantastic work! (plus I enjoy a good difficult game hehe)
Some small elements of polish that I think should be noted (again with that "considering time limits making anything at all is great so these are not me trying to scold or anything just things to keep in mind):
- the camera, when it comes to camera movements I feel its almost always worth it to Lerp the scale rather then instantly resize it. This would make it alot smoother an just feel more natural.
- particles/effects on slime pick up just felt a bit barren.
Some final notes:
the slime is SO CUTE, love him. The game was a bit punishing but overall was alot of fun to move around in.
I realized afterwards that this game pulls up some nostalgic memories actually, their is a game with similar ideas to this called Loco Roco on the PsP. The rotation is 360 but has a limit left and right, also was soft and cute. Could be a good reference! (note since this can vary from person to person, but imo if you game generates images and inspirations from other awesome games your doing something right and fun!) Loco Roco:
Genuinely great work.