played it for about an hour or so
the art style is very very nice. the whole game has a very cohesive atmosphere. if you want some art feedback, some enemies feel very stiff when walking, and the eyes of the playable characters sometimes don't fit the style.
unlocked a few characters. donna the butterfly knife girl is the best so far, with the pale goth girl feeling the weakest due to the giant cooldown on her attack.
speaking of attack cooldowns, since you already show the attack icons at the top - how about some sort of fill shader/texture on top of the icon to indicate cooldown - helps with long forward facing attacks since i can glance at the icon and know when to face towards the enemy for a strike.
some weapon skills felt pretty weak, like the AOE stinkcloud one. i guess it might require a big investment before its strong?
nitpicks:
in the menu, have the skeletal hands follow you on MouseOver instead of mouse click
in the character select portraits, they sometimes don't update? it also seems a bit confusing since what i selected doesn't feel like what the game is telling me. something like a simple border around the icon of the character in the menu might be better instead of having a separate portrait off to the side.
sfx and music sliders are set at max at the game start - ideally set them at the low end since its always better for the game to begin too quiet instead of too loud
bit of a lag when switching radio stations ingame?
every run ended when the whipladies came out. i assume that's the 'end' of the game at least on that first level? they seem like a brick wall in terms of difficulty spike. their SFX is also much louder than everything else (and a bit grating)
for a side-project to learn art, i think you accomplished your goals! well done!
