I must say the writing didn't disappoint, I was expecting gold and that's what I received :D Sorry if I turn out overly harsh, but I think pointing out things to help fix for SMVM might help a lot. So for starters I didn't get to enjoy music, webgl version is heavily stuttering and I couldn't run windows build (crash after first dialogue).
I like characters spritework, especially the frickin flip on dodge, my only issue with animations is that they're not matching with actions very well, mostly character movement speed with speed of action. Bossfights were cool, I enjoyed final one more than the first one, it was a bit hard at times to read what Isla's nemesis would do next and there's a stunlock potential if you get knockback'd into a corner.
At some point my UI also disappeared, not sure why, but it didn't bother me too much, maybe other than the fact that i didn't get to see if there's oxygen indicator (if there's not, pls add, i had to figure out the hard way it exists lol)
No arguments about theme usage, Fishing is there, nuff said, also castlevania vibes, great stuff. Also huge respect for not using pre-existing engine but rather writing your own stuff, for that time frame i think it's great
Viewing post in Isla's Bad Fishing Trip jam comments
Oh and thanks for the feedback :)
Maybe you pressed H by mistake (show hide HUD) one of the undocumented keystrokes I use for testing things out.... maybe it shouldn't be so close to the dodge button ;)
Oh and for full disclosure, this is based on an engine I already had written using the Pixel Game Engine underneath (mostly used for simple sprite drawing routines), but it was a fairly comprehensive rewrite this time round