So I manage to find some time to try out this game and wow, this concept is pretty unique in its way and surprisingly its built using the Panda3D framework which is kind of a niche game engine as an entry for this game jam besides the MegaZeux ones.

So I tried the game and I like the idea of how the twirling mechanic maintains a force on that keeps the player character on a sloped surface without falling off. The game has quite a steep learning curve due to the bunch of buttons at the player disposal which confuses me at first but I got around it by trying out each key on my own and discovering that its basically made up of two sets of keys, with one controlling character movement relative to the camera direction, and the other sets is for the camera orbit/zoom controls. Somehow the jump and twirl button is grouped with the camera controls which is not a big deal but I notice that the arrow keys were not present as part of the UI which only shows the camera controls. I didn't get to read the instructions in the comments below (due to spoilers) or on the page (the yellow text blends in with the wallpaper making it hard to read). I was assuming there were UI hint for the character movement in the game but unfortunately there isn't any in the game.

So my suggestion for control key is that would it be possible to shift the camera rotation/zoom controls to the mouse instead? I'm not familiar how Panda3D handles the control system but it would be easy to pick up the game with mouse movement controlling the camera direction, which help with pointing the character direction as well. Besides that, I notice how the character movement is different when twirling on a vertical wall and on the horizontal surface. The former feels right since the left and right arrow key moves the character horizontally and the up/down moves vertically. Where as the later seems have the character strafe around the camera point, making the character move around the camera. Obviously I could rotate the camera in that direction but notice that strafe is tied to the camera origin point and is not actually a linear strafe. Its a common issue in early 3D adventure games where navigating the character to a transition point to the next scene with the camera angle at a different configuration screws up the character relative bearings to the camera direction. One way to resolve this is to have the camera strafe along with the character so the camera doesn't rotate in any way and maintains distance to the character. One other controller suggestion is that since the twirl is pretty much used through out the entire game, it would make more sense if there is a switch on/off state button rather than holding down the twirl button for long periods of time. This way players could  turn on or off twirl and would have a free finger for the camera controls.

Besides that, basically the game has good ground work here and the mechanics is fun to play around with. Since the game starts off with a mission, an indicator of where to go would be nice since I do know I have to collect 4 bells from the first cut scene but since I'm not familiar with the terrain or how the bell looks so I was a little clueless at finding it. There was one near the start point but it looked like a rock at first and there wasn't any indicator that I actually picked up a bell. Maybe something to highlight it or a UI prompt saying I picked up a bell?

Anyway, I can see you have put in a lot of good effort in the level design and populating it with tons of fun models so do keep up the good work and keep on developing the game. Hopefully my suggestion could help improve the UI/UX side of the game since it vital when new players are exposed to a game with a niche concept. By the way, I only notice the walkthrough and other stuff you post down in the comments after trying out the game.

Looks like it was a good thing I chose to run this on the macOS side of my computer! Like other reviewers, I recognized the N64 aesthetic and was confused about how to complete my tasks.

After reviewing your video guide, I believe the weakness largely stems from one thing: you need to tell the player how to play the game better. Yes, you do provide the controls both on the itch page and at the beginning of the game and even have a floating reminder diagram throughout the game, but there needs to be more, and better.

One of my biggest epiphanies as a game developer was realizing that in addition to testing my players' skills, I also have to teach them how to play my game. It doesn't matter if it's a familiar genre or style of game; I still need to include a tutorial or guide or SOMETHING that slowly shows the player how the game is played. I know that those overbearing tutorials that basically walk you up to a target and flash a big "press this button now!" sign in your face are not well-regarded by players, but the reason they exist and keep appearing in games is because they are highly effective at showing the player what they need to do in no uncertain terms. Now I'm not advocating pulling a Final Fantasy 13 and make a game where half of the playtime is in a tutorial setting, but I do think this game would benefit from a few instances of tutorials that show the player how the controls work and how tasks should be completed. If there was an initial tutorial (optional or mandatory, your call) where the game guides the player to collect one item, it would help immensely with players understanding how the game is supposed to work.

This philosophy of teaching the player also extends to helping the player find all of the required items and where those items are placed. Right now the player has to guess where to go and traverse a distance that is long and boring even when flying directly to the destination (as displayed in your video walkthrough). Game worlds don't need to be massive to be fun, and keeping things small makes it easier to polish the world and keep it interesting. If the game world was shrunk by about 50% and the player was given some sort of indicator about where the various collectables are located (be it a map, a radar, a minimap, a waypoint, etc.) the game would be snappier and more enjoyable.

There are some other user interface-related issues that, if remedied, would improve the experience significantly. Dialog text that can be controlled by the player, as well as displaying the text in an easier-to-read format is one improvement. Another is to display the contextual button presses more clearly. I did appreciate that there are "press this button to interact" popups, but I missed them initially because they are so small and blend into the background. Also a sound to indicate that a collectable was picked up would help to make it clear what happened, along with an indicator about how many collectables had been found and still need to be collected.

In summary, this is a good start to a game, but it needs to do a better job of telling the player what needs to be done and what is going on (plus a bit of polish). Good luck on your future endeavors!

Here's my experience with the game

The game looks quite unique, The character has a really interesting design and the environment is pretty surreal.

Now the game start and the cutscene.. is.. idk what’s going on tbh, no idea who’s talking or who I am, and the text cut off at a weird place makes it confusing. But the only thing I get is to collect Bells? I guess.

Now there’s a tutorial pop-up, it just tells you what button do, But I feel info dump, I tried to memorize it but the tutorial disappears before I could. and I can’t open them back up so I just trial and error until I get used to it.

I really like how the character spin looks, It’s pretty nice. and it seems like a nice mechanic.

I don’t like the camera rotation, It’s feel invert of what I used to somehow, And it’s kinda slow

The game started, first I go to the right, there’s a robot that makes me race him, It’s impossible, I keep falling when I tried to spin up and I don’t even know where the goal is, And when I skip the dialogue, The race won’t start so I have to spam S button instead, but spamming it makes me accidentally start the dialogue again even after the race start, now I have to finish the dialogue while the robot now going ahead of me, after many attempts I gave up, and go back to green place(I will call location based on their color from now on)

A look around and found a guy asking to bring his friend there, so I did exactly that. (apparently, this guy said he isn’t foe, which implies he’s supposed to be our foe, this is when I realized the thing walking around the start were supposed to be enemy, I don’t even notice, it’s small and barely posed a threat so I assume it’s some weird environmental NPC or something)

So I scare the “runner” to him and he gives me the gold thing (while I’m doing the quest I also collect silver bells), Which I assume it’s the gold bell. after that nothing anymore happened so I decided to go around collecting the silver bell or whatever

I go to a purple place and collect the silver bell that just lies there.

then I go to a blown place with blue crystal which if I spin into it, would launch me through the floor and makes me fall and die, then I collect the silver bell.

I collected 3 silver bell, which means there’s one left, the robot race!. (I didn’t realize that the robot isn’t the one who will give silver bell, oh well)this time I have to beat him somehow, I can’t run away, Tried it many times, to the point the robot starts glitching that it never reaches its destination, which gives me infinite time.  

And then I discover a groundbreaking technique, If you hold W and X when you spin on the wall, You will be stuck on the wall until release. that’s mean no more falling! now the next enemy is the camera, It’s trying to rotate to follow your direction but all it does here is making you unable to see what ahead of you. 

After reaching the top the robot seems to stuck with the purple thing, I see the purple bowl from far away, so I glide down and see the platform that leads to the silver bell, I collect it and go to the castle, and the game end there’s an art at the end, it’s okay I think. I not even sure if I’m going to bother getting the secret ending.

Conclusion: this game has a good concept, but it packs with really bad movement and control, The movement doesn’t seem to work as I want most of the time and the camera work against me. I don’t know if most problems have anything to do with the fact that I played it on Window though.

This is a really interesting world you've created! Gives me big Mario 64 vibes, but with a surreal twist that makes the whole thing feel very unique. There's a doll-like appearance to the characters that definitely stands out from other games I've played.

I like the saw mechanic and the platforming challenges, though I did find it fairly difficult. I'm playing on Windows though, so I'm getting the speed issue others are having.

I hope you get the windows version running a little smoother, as I'd like to give it another try at the intended speed!

I enjoyed exploring the area that I was able to get to easily. The game has a visual style that evokes N64 with its low rez stretched textures. But running in a modern high rez screen lends a uniquely bizarre quality to it. I really liked it exploring because of this. 

Due to my being on a Windows, as mentioned in other comments here the framerate felt sluggish. The platforming itself was too hard for me to do, possibly linked to the performance, but also in part due to the awkward control scheme. 

That said I was content to explore the world and soak in its strange ambience for a time.

I always love seeing odd frameworks and in-house tech. I'd actually never heard of Panda3D before.

I'm personally not a fan of the style- I found the characters pretty ugly and the environment not much better. But it's clear that a lot of thought and effort went into the modeling, and the animations are smooth and appealing.

The intro cutscene was cool, and does a pretty good job as a hook. I did find it hard to tell who was talking, though, and some of the text was cut off.

How complete did you consider this project? It feels maybe halfway to me. There are a lot of interesting movement mechanics to try, a decent section of world, but also it seems some of the interactions aren't working and it's unclear where to go once you're dropped into the world. I did have fun tooling around and playing with stuff, though.

I found it really awkward to play for a few reasons. The movement mechanics are super cool when they work, but I often found myself drifting in random directions, just not stopping, or getting stuck in one mode or another. It's really hard to judge depth for some reason, which makes platforming sections difficult. I also found the controls awkward, but I think with time I would have gotten used to it a bit more.

The game runs horribly on my machine, although I understand it's a known issue (Windows user here).

Finally, is that the presidential seal hidden (?) in the map?

The art has a very N64 feel to it, quite nice. Sadly my PC is too potato to run this thing in a good framerate.