This is both beautiful and really inspiring for me. I love minimalist games that are all about the visuals and feeling. The way that you incorporated the emotion you're having the player feel into the game mechanics is beautiful. It actually felt challenging and kept me engaged throughout the game.
This might be my favorite game to come out the jam so far, I'm not kidding.
This is really lovely! The art style is really cute, it has a cheeky sense of humor (Does that wizard have red bull in his magical vending machine, lol?), and it reminds me a lot of some of the classic 3D platformers on the PS1. Unfortunately for me, I'm not great at platformers, haha! The gameplay does feel rewarding when I'm able to make it to a tough area, but I'm just not great at these types of games.
Heyo, I think the game is pretty solid. I really like what you were trying to do with your storytelling. Without getting into spoilers, I'm not sure if I would say the themes your tackling were well done. Your game tackles some very sensitive topics and, to me, it felt rushed (makes sense, it's a 2 week long game jam but still). Redemption stories are tough to write convincingly. I think had you had more time to develop the story, it would be better. I admire the ambition!
In terms of gameplay, I loved the storytelling through the letters and I think more environmental storytelling would benefit it a lot. Maybe have some photos, cracked walls, etc? I think the color scheme for the real world works very well but it can be pushed more. I didn't fully understand how the shadow-realm is connected to the story. It sounds like it's the character escaping reality instead of facing it, but the ending is very dependent on how many enemies you kill.
1st person swordplay is tough to do without making the player nauseous but I think it would be a little more challenging if you added different sword attacks (ie: heavy attack, quick stab, etc). I think the enemies could've used more variety and balancing, but it's possible I missed something. They didn't feel rewarding to fight, instead I felt like I was walking tissue paper tearing against a dull point. They felt too hard to fight, imo.
I know I'm a little harsh, but I hope this can help you for your next project. Again, this was pretty solid and I hope you grow more as a developer after this!
