Aight, I have some concerns with the game. I hope this is considered and/or addressed sometime in the future, but it has been a month since this game's release, so idk if it's happening:
- A pause button would be greatly appreciated. Not having one just leaves the character vulnerable while you take care of something else. You can imagine my frantic pressing of the "Esc" and "P" keys during a boss fight, to no avail.
- The paths to obtain the HP upgrades are pretty strange.
- The 1st HP upgrade is behind a dark maze, tho I think it's a bit too dark. Once you get to the middle section, you can't really tell if you're traversing the maze or walking endlessly onto a wall. I'd suggest putting 2 or 3 lights along the path toward the health upgrade; not enough to light the whole maze, but enough for players to establish a relative path in and out of the maze.
- The 2nd HP upgrade's location felt much like a "filler room," if you know what I mean. A dead-end room with a lot of lava and nothing else? Casual players may find it weird, and experienced players will immediately deduce that something's hidden (or the room will change in the future). There's also the uneventful walk toward the upgrade itself after the hidden entrance. Putting some enemies in it would make the room a bit more lively. Heck, you may even put a jumping dino mini-boss, since that's the only missing boss version of the enemies. You may also shorten the walk to the health upgrade.
- I-frames are too short, to the point where I thought there weren't any. They usually take 1-2 seconds atleast, based on other Metroidvania games. Games that usually have fewer to no i-frames are those with combo systems, like fighting games. Having fewer i-frames affected how I traversed the rooms, and you betcha I didn't like the bottomless pit room because of it, lol. During the bird boss fight, I happened to end up between 2 yellow birds, and they knocked me back and forth like they were playing volleyball. Then boom, 3 of my HP lost because of something I had little control over. So yeah, i-frames.
- A bit disappointing that you can't reset your save. You always start with all collected upgrades from the previous run. I know this is just a small Metroidvania that doesn't have replayability in mind, but if there is one type of player that's willing to play this kind of game over and over again, it's a speedrunner. Now, I may not be a speedrunner myself, but the very inclusion of a time on the victory screen gives me enough motivation to do better than my last run. I hope you give us the option to choose "New Game" for a save reset, and maybe even include a "New Game+" for those who finished a normal run and wanna start with all upgrades collected.
On the other hand, the visuals and animations are clean and smooth. The different colors are distinguishable and work well together. The bosses had cool attack patterns that are somehow balanced despite the i-frames issue.
Neat game, would replay again if I had the option to.