This is definitelly one of the prettiest looking games on the jam, there's no doubt on that. Amazing pixel art and really gorgeous animations, all of them have a lot of charm and personality, and I really appreciate all the little details like the diferent spins for each jump and the interactions with ledges, makes the little mage dude look much more alive. I really like all the aesthetics in general tbh, the chill music, and the little dialogues as well.

Gameplay is kind of a mistery tho. In theory, it haves everything I could ever ask on a good platformer, fluid controls, lots of speed, cool effects, but for some reason, I didn't quite click with it in all sincerity. I don't really know why, but if I were to guess I would say that this is probably fault of the level design. I really didn't feel like the world really made sense or that it was actually made with the char's moveset in mind, it's kinda just a lot of caves with a few platforms and crabs thrown around. There was no real actual challenge anywhere, nothing that actually taught or tested any of my skills. All of the crabs are also just pushovers, they really feel more like just a nuisance than anything. Combat itself is not really fun tbh, more because the enemy design and movement tech don't get along well. Movement tech wants you to go fast, jumpy and pirouette-ly, while the enemies are small fast moving targets with contact damage, plus more often than not they're just spammed on random corridors with no real rhyme or reason, and sometimes it's too narrow to even try stomping on them. There are also a huge lot of blind jumps,  you can't really see much of the screen when you're not dashing, so I died quite a few times by landing onto the spike ball dudes before I could see them. (Granted, I did forget about the slow fall until I was at the end of the game, but still, a mechanic that serves as a bandage doesn't fix the issue)

Also, I'm afraid you got kind of the wrong idea of what a metroidvania should be. Idk how active you were on the server, but if you stay there for long enought you'll notice that most of the active community members agree that your upgrades to explore the map should not be things that can be narrowed down to "keys to a door", wich this game actually did quite literally, and a lot so x)

The only real metroidvania "key" we have here is the dash, but even then it's only ever needed to grab a single other "door key", and never more.

Anyway gameplay vid!!

(Sorry if it's laggy, I actually almost didn't manage to run the game as well. Downloadable didn't work, and it didn't open on my usual browser either. I eventually managed to make it work on chrome, but it almost refused there as well.)

Also, I just assumed the game ended after I got the kill aura, I had no clue where I would have to go after that.

REALLY COOL! love the dreamlike aestethic, the acceleration feels a bit low but thats just a nitpick

Great unique visual style and moveset! Killing enemies was very satisfying too. Maybe it was a bit uncanny that you had to jump to go faster before getting the dash upgrade though. Don't know if it's just me but the pink key was very hard to see because you went past it so fast, I was stuck there for a good while.

The movement in this game was totally slick! Though I feel like it might have been a good idea to split up the character's move set among multiple powerups instead of starting off with so many options right off the bat. It took me quite some time to realize that the character has a triple jump and can dash by double tapping a direction. Powerups in metroidvanias typically (and quite sneakily) act as a subtle tutorial for each of the characters abilities by telling you what the ability does and then providing a scenario in which the ability would be useful. Spitting up a character's moveset into powerups would let you use the abilities themselves as keys! Just be careful to build the maps so that the players don't softlock themselves... Or you can include a panic button so that players can respawn when stuck.

There is a softlock where if you take damage when crawling through a gap you get stuck. Fortunately, this game has a save system (may want to despawn the items that the player already collected on reload and drop the player off at their last checkpoint). My game has its fair share of softlocks and minor bugs too though, they can be really tough to notice before submissions. 

This is one of the few games where the in-game art is better than the cover. Both the sound and art design were phenomenal, and the movement and mechanics are about as satisfying as they get! I was looking forward to using all the character's different moves in a bossfight, but I understand that one only has so much time for a game jam.

Out of curiosity, does the ultimate power upgrade mark the end of the game?

As someone who loves feeling like I'm on a sugar rush this games did wonders sensory wise for me. Loved the sound effects and zappy mechanics all very satisfying. Saying that it does sometimes feel I'm not fully in control of what I'm doing. Some things felt toggled like dashing, and when using the gold boots I didn't feel like I was doing anything special to activate them. I understand it's by  jumping on things but I didn't see an indicator of how many actions I have with it so it felt a little random. Oh and I would have love to shoot with the mouse button but that's really minor tbf and more about habits. Sometimes a little lag too especially when jumping.  Awesome immersion overall really enjoyed the high! 

P.s: Any feedback on our game would be truly appreciated also!

The game feel is amazing; I love the art and animation. The sound effects and music are pretty good too. I felt that the constant switch to walk mode and the low air acceleration don't fit so well with the otherwise amazing movement set, making the controls feel a little sluggish. But overall, it is still very fun to play.

The game seems cool and all, the metroidvania aspect is respected i love it, but on the net the game lags and i have a bit of trouble with the movements.

But it's great :)

Very pretty everything, especially I like the wand attack, it is very cute and minimalistic. I see a lot of efferts put into animated everything, even the character standing on the edge has separate animation. The only thing I had issue with was camera - when jumping it was too fast and disoriented. Also I wish I could increase brightness level. Overall, great entry, good job!

This is the entry I was looking forward to the most and you didn't disappoint! The movement is definitely the highlight of this, it just feels so good and satisfying! There's a lot of ommft on the game feedback too. The animations are hella smooth too. I also like the visual aesthetic

i really enjoyed the art for the characters and the sound on this one! everything had a lot of charm. the movement was okay for the most part. i think the delta between walking and running might be a bit too large but that could just be personal preference. the enemies don't put up any sort of fight since you seem to be able to spam the wand with no cooldown so i was surprised when the first upgrade i found was a combat item. the levels are also very haphazard which i imagine is due to the movement (infinite neutrals and the triple jump from the start). there was also a bit of slow down. that all said, i still had fun because of the effects and animations! i hope you carry this into the super jam, i think it'd be a great fit there.

Great game! The movement felt really good. I especially like the triple jump. The experience was solid & I liked the visual aesthetic. It reminded me of Spyro mixed with a Sega Genesis era graphics. All of the visual & sound effects are perfect. I suggest adjusting the camera zoom & adding a map to the game. The camera zoomed in too close at times & made navigation difficult.