Some general feedback upfront. You put some great efforts into your game. One can see&feel this in so many places. The amount of details and subtle visual changes and feedback given is really, really impressive!
> I would love any general feedback or suggestions. (everything is a WIP)
I was watching my nephew playing your game, as he is the even bigger fan of us two ;-) He usually plays games like Super Mario and Donkey Kong on a Nintendo console. So he is more familiar with classic platformers, not so much with the Metroidvania genre. He is also used to WASD thanks to some extensive PC Stardew Valley projects :-D
Playing your game, he had some nice success and progress. The controls on my PC keyboard were quite a challenge - he had to pause & check for the Shift and Control keys regularely. He likes the "Spear as a platform" mechanic, this makes your game pretty special and attractive. It is a good choice to make the player jump that high - so placing the spear "maybe too high" never was an issue.
If I remember correctly, he got stuck at the same place as in our last test play (some month ago). Somewhere after defeating the first flying enemies, there is a new challenge introduced. These moving saw blades. Well, they don't get introduced, suddenly they are just there. And this is where he struggles. It's just not clear what to do. In detail: where to go? up? down? to the left through the small gap? but how? How to overcome the saw blades in general: by avoiding them? by stopping them? (secret, hidden lever?), by being "somehow" fast?
By listing all these questions, maybe you get an idea of how to introduce this part in a better way? Doesn't need to be text, I think. Maybe designing that first level part very obvious, so that players can intuitively learn how to deal with the blades. And then making it gradually tougher?
Hope this feedback is helping you. Please keep it going - you are onto something really nice here!
