(this review is about the game jam version of the game)

(in case you're just wondering roughly how long this game takes to finish, it took me ~4hours for 1 playthrough)

first of all i would like to say that i am completely blown away by the depth of this experience! it really is a full-blown RPG with carefully considered mechanics, items, armour, etc. i haven't seen anything like it for this jam and i'm really impressed!

second, i love the subtle storytelling. it's fucked up in a really juicy way and i'm very intruiged to see where it goes next. i really like how some of the puzzles and how the gameplay (particularly the enemies) interweave seamlessly with telling the story, where the story is enhanced by the gameplay and vice versa.

the characters were delightful, even those we only get to see for a short time. i liked the fat imp the most but i'm biased haha. i loved all the art, though i especially liked the enemy/creature designs. 

as for the gameplay, as i said it's very well thought out. be advised though that the difficulty curve is VERY steep. same goes for the puzzles. i think i spent like 20 minutes with a pen and paper on a particular number puzzle haha. i would say that the difficulty probably contributes to the atmosphere, but there were a few times during difficult boss battles where it teetered into being so frustrating that it was almost no longer enjoyable for me. i would personally appreciate maybe a few more healing items or some kind of helping measure if you keep dying to the same boss, similar to how you can skip some puzzles.

i also think that some of the maps were too mazelike for my liking, particularly in areas where you're meant to backtrack to get 1 item, and areas where the doors aren't immediately obvious (this is a particular problem with doors that go to the left or right and don't appear on the screen as an individual sprite, as well as doors that are obscured by the lighting/blend too easily into the background). 

anyway it was overall a really impressive and ambitious game!!! i liked it a lot!!!!! well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!