Thank you so much for playing! I appreciate it loads.
The performance can be chalked up to the engine that was used. I can tell you I spent months actually trying to fix the problem. Apparently on some laptops / desktops there's a hard-baked setting in the way they draw power that determines whether or not the game engine utilizes enough memory / processing power. However, even after my attempts at modifying everything in the game from start to finish (even rebuilding all the lighting from scratch!) I found no luck. My only option was to make the game in a different engine, and that would have taken far too long.
Your feedback is much appreciated! The critique is amazing, and will only help make our games better. It makes a lot of sense that the transition from The Beginning to The End is fairly sudden. I'll take that into account when building things further, thanks for pointing that out! I can see how moving from one gameplay section to another in such a short time span can make for an awkward shift. Same goes for the enemy types, I can see how the same two being used over and over may get a bit boring overtime haha.
As for the story, I felt it had a solitary place within the game world, and wasn't sure how to better implement it. Maybe character sprites you discover? More items and enemies that revolve around it? I'm sure that since you've mentioned the story here, you've discovered the secrets that lie within the The End that tell the deeper pieces of what's happening. It's totally understandable that these would feel super disconnected. It's super good feedback, thank you!
Thank you for playing, and thank you even more for leaving feedback - it only helps to make things better : )
~ Josh