I love the premise and style here, but the game is really, really rough.

With the volume at default, the music is insanely loud and driven into distortion (somehow). There is a volume slider, but it feels weirdly non-linear (in fact it's probably linear, it's just that audio levels aren't), and doesn't seem to affect in-game volume.

Which is kind of a shame, because although they're generic tracks, they're well chosen.

I don't know if the controls are designed for a different layout, but they're horrible on a US English keyboard. You have to move your hand halfway across the keyboard to punch or kick if you're resting it in the right place to sprint or shoot. Using Z and X for punch and kick would have been a much better choice.

I'm not sure what the point of having three different attacks is, as they all seem to do about the same amount of damage, none of them stagger enemies, and only one of them has range.

I wish the action was zoomed out a little; you can't really see far enough ahead to plan your moves.

I was never able to make it past the first level, because some enemies would randomly stop taking damage. I didn't really try that hard, though, because frankly it just wasn't fun to play. There were too many enemies and they weren't interesting to fight, and there was nothing in terms of narrative or progression to push me forward. The tutorial level at least had some height variation, but the first real level was very bland.

I liked the graphics. The style of the character art is going to be divisive, but I liked it. The backgrounds work well, too. Some of the animations are a bit meh, but the running animation for the main character was nice.

The UI could be nicer, but I almost invariably half-ass the UI to keep scope under control, so I can't say too much about that.

Technical issues aside, I think the biggest issue is that the fighting isn't fun. The emphasis is definitely on fighting over platforming here, and that part of the game just doesn't work very well. As I alluded to earlier, the enemies don't really react to your attacks or have interesting moves of their own, your own attacks are pretty boring and all do the same thing, and there's a dearth of effects to give satisfying audio or visual feedback.

EDIT: Finally, I know the main character is supposed to be beetle-themed, but I'm just not seeing it in her design or powers.

Needs a lot of work I think. Some major issues here:

• Volume is extremely loud, and I used the ingame volume slider to lower the volume and still got my ears blasted out when I started the game
• Movement is janky and the camera flickers considerably as the character moves. Consider doing your camera movement in lateupdate or something to avoid the extreme character flicker
• Movement is slidey and doesn't match up with the animation
• Attack animations are only 1 frame and some aren't even animated. Needs a total rework
• Enemies don't really do anything.

This one is hard to criticise cause it's so unfinished. I think looking at how other platformers do basic things like movement and attacking to really solidify your fundamentals is the most important thing for you to grow as a creator. Take your time and maybe focus on really polishing basics to make sure you understand how to do them, even if it takes a long time at first you will get better and it will become easier.

Anyone can improve, and it's good that you managed to produce something for the jam, I hope you grow your skills and can make something much better next time.

A beetle-themed magical girl got my interests peaked up, it is a good idea but I think the design speaks less of this than I imagined, i.e. if someone didn’t tell me that this is beetle lady, I wouldn’t have imagined her to be beetle lady. In addition, any associated themes and setting needs to be more fleshed out. I beat both levels, but the gameplay still needs a lot of work. The punching and kicking needs to have more impact - the enemy needs to react to it, maybe have some effects, sounds, etc. The game mechanics are quite minimal for a platformer or a beat-em-up. Other than that, the volume control also doesn’t work and resets to full volume once the game starts.

Overall, I did have a little fun beating and shooting my way through. Keep it up!