I'm mixed on this game.
First, some positives:
- Terrific art, as always!
- Enemies telegraph blows so you know what's coming
- Additionally, there's (usually) a pretty generous timing window for perfect blocks
- Hawk's timings feel unfair. Even after I figured out he was messing with the count, I started getting double-attacked.
- Additionally, there's (usually) a pretty generous timing window for perfect blocks
- Spot-on music and sound effects.
- It's not too long and doesn't have much in the way of filler content.
Now for some criticisms:
- Nothing was noticeably different between the "attack" and "defend" phases to me
- I'm not sure how I feel about the story. Dark themes (parents & friends getting eaten) followed by light themes (namely jokes) gave me mood whiplash. Plus, Hawk somehow ending up friends with Red was...a choice, I guess.
- The pacing of the battles is wonky. To me, it seems we start with a medium-difficulty battle (that Hawk was a real damage sponge), then we get an easy battle against a group, followed by a monster-hard final battle.
- The thing that made the final battle extra-hard was the changes in Hawk's patterns - we went from even-paced countdowns to uneven counts and double attacks. I died SO MANY TIMES here!
- Not a criticism, but I appreciated that we only have to see the "bad end" "cutscene" once, then it loops back to the final battle until you win.
I normally advocate for shorter, more polished jam entries, but I think this is a case in which drawing out the content more would have made for a better presentation. I can see the potential in what was being conveyed here, but it just didn't have enough time to get fully developed from the player's perspective.
Criticisms aside, I respect you working to break the mold and enjoyed the experience overall. The game has long-term project potential, with the side benefit of the length probably addressing the biggest criticisms.