Hey, Kwisarts. It's good to see you participating in this jam.
Zelda-like? Come on, it's obviously Metroid-like upgrading! The game has a Varia Suit ripoff and everything. Regardless, I'm glad you liked the progression.
I don't think there's
anything inherently wrong with using directional keys. Being able to
choose the controls is definitely nice but it's one of those low priority things that
often gets left out with a limited time frame. Having to use an
AZERTY keyboard certainly wouldn't help with the A being out of place. In the future
I'll make sure to bind any A actions to Q as well.
You may have trouble with the direction lock thing, but I imagine the game would be a nightmare without it. It's mainly combined with shooting so I can get as much functionality out of as few keys as possible. A dedicated strafe key is a good idea, though. The issue is just finding a good key to use. I guess I could try using Shift and finding another way to interact with the lift.
I know what you mean with the hitbox, but it's a bit hard to tweak with such low resolution. I tried a 2x2 hitbox at some point but it was weird being able to walk halfway inside walls plus it made it easier to fall into pits. I guess I could try using a different hitbox for different types of collisions, though.
The slow movement of the final boss was partially done in attempt to make it feel more threatening and creepy, though perhaps it didn't result in the best gameplay. Admittedly, I don't have much experience with making bosses and the boss here was a little rushed.
The ammo meter is so limited because I intended for it to be upgraded - this was just its starting state. The original plan was to have collectables that would increase your max ammo (and ones that would increase your max health). However, I left it too late and didn't have enough time to redesign the levels to have optional areas for the collectables or balance the difficulty with the stat increases in mind.
I'm not a big fan of the font, either. The S looks like a C, the N looks like an H, the M looks like a W... It was basically the first small font I found when searching online and I never got around to changing it.