This felt really good to play! I enjoyed it.
First off, the good stuff:
- The controls overall felt good and responsive (though some niggles mentioned below).
- The enemies have good behaviours and movements.
- The atmosphere of this game is phenomenal, and the art sells it nicely. (Other than the bee, which seems a bit out of place art-style-wise.)
- It's fun to play. It got frustrating in the way all difficult games do; once you get used to the move sets, it's generally doable and feels good to overcome.
Some things I had issues with:
- As another commenter noted, the really dark environment with black enemies make them hard to see and react to. If I were you, I'd make them a high-contrast color to the background, or at least give them a high-contrast outline. (E.g. maybe the infection/parasite effect is indicated by a saturated red outline?) Seeing where they begin and end is important for a game where touching enemies means damage.
- Not being able to roll in the air was definitely a source of annoyance for me. Later we get the dash ability that allows mid-air dodges, but it seems a bit cruel to make the first boss a flying enemy when you can't dodge in mid-air, especially given the difficulty / short response time for its attacks. E.g. if you're jumping to hit him and he begins his attack animation while you're in the air, you're getting hit no matter what.
- The controls mentioned on your game page doesn't match what's in game. (At least, not for the controller.) E.g. dash is noted as the east face button, but it's actually left trigger, and heal is noted at the north face button, but is actually the east face button. I basically only discovered that I could heal from the start of the game when I came to the comments to find out if anyone else was getting obliterated by the first boss.
- The heal/respawn point looks exactly like a bunch of other torches in the game, so it's impossible to know which one is decor and which is one of those.
- I think the difficulty curve is perhaps a bit too steep; hard to do a proper difficulty curve in a jam, but having basic enemies (that are also frequently summoned by the first boss) that need three hits to kill is maybe a bit rough, especially because they're flying around and can be difficult to even hit.
- The entrance to the part where you go to get the ledge grab (or double jump? can't remember now) has a blind drop into some spikes, which seems unnecessary. If I were you, I'd make sure the player can see the spikes while still on the ledge (either via closer level design, or with a look down functionality).
- Getting some indication that you've gotten a new ability would have been nice. I was able to figure it out via pressing all the buttons, but e.g. for a while, I didn't notice that I'd gotten double jump.
Bugs(?):
- After coming back from the ledge grab area (I think, or double jump), going back into the previous screen makes you hit something and respawn at the first bonfire.
- I got to the worm boss and beat it, but then the game just stays there. The worm explodes, but the emptied health bar remains, and the gates remain locked. I also don't think I got anything for it?
Overall, this is a great entry that I enjoyed a lot. It perhaps sticks a little too close to the Hollow Knight script, but it feels like there's some room for unique and interesting mechanics. Nice job!